


Attachment

by performativezippers



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Attachment theory, F/F, Kidnapping, Lots of processing, Maura is taken and makes a little friend, Slow Burn, This is a repost of a finished fic from ff.net, Who belongs to Jane, featuring one OC who is a very cute little nugget, the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 02:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 66,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12071586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/performativezippers/pseuds/performativezippers
Summary: Maura shakily raises both her hands over her head, looking directly into the eyes of the second person to hold a gun to her head today. "You must be Auntie Jane," she says weakly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t read colormetheworld’s “Bound” over on fanfiction.net then please stop right here and go read that. It’s motherfucking brilliant and is required reading, both for your life as a human and for this. It’s not very long – I’ll just wait here while you go change your life over there.
> 
> Okay, super. Now that you’ve read that, we can keep going here. In colormetheworld’s story, Jane is held captive by a deranged psychopath and befriends a little girl who belongs to Maura. It’s brilliant. After reading it for the millionth time, I started thinking. Of Rizzoli and Isles, Jane is the most likely to have been able to befriend a child and enact a daring escape. Jane understands people and fighting and babies. The skills she needed to survive that captivity were exactly the skills she knew she had. Maura, on the other hand, is a completely different story. She knows some about deranged psychopaths, she knows very little about people or babies. 
> 
> This is my thought experiment, which is fanfiction based on the cannons of both Rizzoli and Isles and colormetheworld’s “Bound” universe.
> 
> \---
> 
> This is a repost of this story which lives over on fanfiction.net. If you've read it over there, this is just the same story. No additions, no changes, probably even the same amount of typos. Just wanted it over here too.
> 
> Enjoy!

She runs. Her bare feet slap quietly on the sidewalk. Her breath is loud, ragged. Even though she knows it’s scientifically impossible, she’s sure the stitch in her side has become an actual gaping wound. If her hands were free, she’d be compulsively feeling for blood running down her side.

 

Instead she just shifts the child she holds in her arms and keeps running, street after street, using any spare air to coo quietly, hoping the warm heavy mass in her arms stays asleep and quiet.

 

She’s been running for hours. She doesn’t know how much further she has to go, but she knows she can’t keep going much longer. She wonders, for probably the hundredth time, if she survived all that just to die on the street, an exhausted shell of what she’d been. But this time, just like the last ninety-nine times, the little nugget in her arms shifts and woofs softly into her neck, reminding her that failure isn’t an option.

 

She keeps running.

 

* * *

 

It’s 3:12am. The rookie on desk duty is snoozing behind the monitors. He’d picked up extra shifts these past few weeks, like everyone, and they’re catching up to him. His head is bobbing gently in his hands, images of his unpaid stack of bills dancing in and out of his brain, until the glass door to the precinct slams open, jarring him awake. To his credit, it’s still only a second or two before his hand is on his gun, but then he freezes, squatting halfway above his chair, his jaw sagging.

 

A ragged woman has just charged through the metal detector and is cowering, gasping for air, against the back wall of the lobby, one arm flung out to brace herself against the wall. She’s filthy, barefoot, dressed in what might once have been a pencil skirt and blouse. Her hair is matted and she’s left bloody footprints across the lobby. She shifts, and he realizes she is carrying a toddler across her chest.

 

Before he can speak, he realizes she’s trying to say something between heaving breaths.

 

“Get me the detective on the Rizzoli case. Quickly.”

  

The guard is looking at her like she’s a ghost. She wants to scream at him. She repeats herself as he stares, completely glazed over. “I need you to call a detective on the Rizzoli case immediately.” Nothing.

 

She wonders if he’s high or just incompetent.

 

“HEY.” She snaps, loudly. She hadn’t made it this far to be stuck in a lobby with an idiot. She’s running out of time. She quickly turns the child around in her arms, so the guard looks directly into a tiny sleeping face, surrounded by matted white blonde hair. “This is Kylie Rizzoli. Get me a detective right now.”

 

The guard snaps to attention, both alert and incredulous. “Did you– Kylie?”

 

“Yes,” she hisses back, as close to yelling as she’s willing to do this close to the child. “We’re running out of time, I need to see a detective right now.”

 

The guard nods. “Detective Rizzoli is here tonight. I’ll call her for you.”

 

She nods, then turns her attention to the child in her arms, her voice softening immediately. “Hey, Ky. Hey, tiny girl.” She bounces her up and down a little bit, and brushes the hair off her sweaty forehead. “It’s time to wake up now, tiny girl. I need you to wake up now, okay Ky?”

 

The little girl opens her eyes groggily, then closes them again. She grips the woman’s shirt in her tiny fist and tries to bury her face deep in the woman’s neck again. “Mo,” she mumbles.

 

“No, baby girl, it’s time to wake up. We’re safe now, tiny girl. You know who’s here to see you?”

 

The little girl blearily opens her eyes again, looking trustingly at the woman’s face.

 

“Your Auntie Jay is here, she’s coming to see you right now.”

 

A look of sleepy wonder comes over the child. “Aunnie Jay?” Her words are slurred, a combination of sleep and youth.

 

“Yes, tiny girl. She’s coming right now. So you need to wake up, okay? I’m gonna put you down, and we’re going to stand until Auntie Jay comes.” She sets the little girl down on her feet. She has little shoes on that light up when she hits the ground. They have Iron Man on them. They look out of place next to the woman’s bloody toes. She holds tight to the woman’s hand, sticking her free thumb directly into her mouth. She looks around the lobby, fear in her eyes.

 

“Aunnie Jay?” She asks, hesitantly.

 

“She’s coming, tiny girl.” The woman strokes the girl’s sweaty blonde hair, trying in vain to make it presentable with one hand. She feels naked without the child glued to her torso. She fleetingly wonders if she has a Kylie-shaped sweat stain on her shirt. In a weird way, she kind of hopes that she does. _Something of yours to keep, sweet girl_.

 

“The detective’s on her way down,” the guard announces. She’d already forgotten about him. She breathes out and sags just a little against the wall behind her, beginning to let herself believe for the first time that this might have worked.

 

“KYLIE?!?” A horse voice cries out the second a door across the lobby opens. “Kylie??”

 

Her only impression is of a grey suit, lanky elbows, and a mop of curly black hair before Kylie rips herself from her side and runs into the arms of the stranger. “Aunnie Jay! Aunnie Jay!” The stranger slides to her knees and presses the child to her like she’d been missing for year, babbling and crying and cupping her tiny head in her strong hand.

 

She just crouches there, holding the girl, for a long moment. Then her face comes up and the women lock eyes. In an instant the stranger is standing, Kylie shoved behind her legs, her gun out and pointed directly across the lobby at the woman’s head.

 

Maura shakily raises both her hands over her head, looking directly into the eyes of the second person to hold a gun to her head today. “You must be Auntie Jane,” she says weakly.

 

* * *

 

“Who the fuck are you and what the hell did you do to my niece.” Jane spits out the words, hard and fierce.

 

Maura raises her hands higher. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

 

Jane clicks her safety off and the sound absolutely terrifies Maura.

 

“Please. You don’t understand.”

 

“Oh, I fucking understand,” Jane snarls. She takes a step closer, now not more than eight feet from the woman. “I fucking understand everything.”

 

“Please.” Maura’s body is giving out. She slumps back against the wall, the effort of holding her arms up quickly moving from pain to agony. “Please.” How ironic, if Kylie’s aunt is the one to kill her, after all this.

 

And then, in a flash, a tiny figure darts out from behind Jane’s legs and runs directly into the line of fire. She attaches herself to Maura’s legs before either woman can stop her. “Mo,” she says, pulling on her skirt in a way that is clearly demanding to be picked up.

 

Maura shakily squats down, putting her face level with Kylie’s. She brings her hands down to cup Kylie’s face, but the harsh voice barks at her immediately.

 

“HANDS UP. BACK AWAY FROM HER. Kylie, come here.”

 

Maura raises her hands but has trouble standing back up. She fights her trembling muscles for a moment, then looks desperately up into Jane’s unforgiving eyes. “Please,” she whispers.

 

Kylie looks at her quizzically, cocking her head to the side. “Mo…has ouch?”

 

“Yes, sweetie,” Maura says softly, still down on Kylie’s level, tearing her eyes from Jane’s. “I have a little ouch, but I’m okay.” She’s lucky she hasn’t gotten hives from lying in nine long days. She’s far from okay, even if she doesn’t get shot right here in this lobby.

 

“Need kisses?” Kylie looks at Maura earnestly, reaching up to touch her face softly with her smooth little hand, seemingly searching for a cut or bruise to kiss.

 

Maura can’t help herself. She smiles at the goodness in this sweet little creature. “Thank you, tiny girl, but I’m okay. I need you to go over by Auntie Jay now, okay?”

 

Kylie gives Maura a look she’s come to know very well, knitting her brows together and crossing her arms over her tiny chest. “No.”

 

Before it can launch into a full-blown fight, another voice joins the chorus. “Jane?” Maura looks up to see a man in a suit standing behind Jane, his gun out and confusion all over his features. She manages to struggle to her feet as he says, “Jane, what’s going on?”

 

Kylie turns to look at him, and he blanches. “Kylie?”

 

Jane hasn’t lowered her gun or looked away from Maura for a second. “Frost, grab Kylie.” The man holsters his gun and comes forward, reaching down to scoop up the child, but she’s too fast for him.

 

She screams and dives behind Maura, trying to curl herself up into a ball. Maura is terrified of one of them shooting Kylie with all the commotion. “Please,” she says again, pleading, raising her hands in the air for the third time, feeling something rip under her skin. “She’s scared.”

 

Jane keeps her gun trained on Maura, but seems to understand. “Frost, cuff her and take her to interrogation. I’ll meet you there.”

 

Frost comes forward again. He reaches out to take Maura’s wrists, and even the guard standing fifteen feet away can see her flinch. She stands as still as she can as he cuffs her arms behind her back. She lets him steer her toward the elevator across the lobby, but stops in her tracks as Kylie screams again.

 

“Mo! Mo!” Maura turns to see Kylie squirming out of Jane’s arms. She breaks free and launches herself at Maura’s legs, chanting “Mo, Mo, Mo,” and sobbing.

 

“Shh, baby, shh.” Maura tries to comfort her, but it’s hard with her arms behind her back. She bends down to try to kiss Kylie’s head or whisper to her, but Jane rips the child away from her.

 

“Take her,” she snarls.

 

Maura’s muscles have given out again again, and Frost has to heave her to her feet. He silently leads her into the elevator, and they can hear Kylie’s voice fade from screams to plaintive cries as they rise above the second floor.

 

Maura leans her head against the elevator wall, too exhausted to cry.

 

They made it.


	2. Chapter 2

Maura sits in the hard chair in the interrogation room. She’s never been in one before, but there isn’t much to look at to keep her occupied. She estimates that the room is probably around 68 degrees, but the contrast from the Boston humidity outside makes it seem freezing. She can’t quite repress her shudders as her hot sweat turns icy and begins to itch. Her hands are still bound behind her, and her exhausted brain quickly narrows in on only one detail: how devastatingly itchy her head is, right at her hairline.

 

Her feet are still bleeding, she had barely been able to stand or lift her arms just moments ago, but now it’s this itch that has her nearly panicking with agony. A small part of her brain understands this is a reaction to everything she’s been through, but even that knowledge can’t dampen the feeling that if she doesn’t scratch soon, she’ll die.

 

She spends a few fruitless moments trying to dislocate her shoulders to bring her arms around to her front, then another few berating herself for never mastering that skill. Then a few others in a very undignified attempt to scratch herself with her shoulders, but that just makes her feel worse.

 

She looks directly at the big pane of opaque glass, trying to discern if anyone is behind it yet. She’s just about ready to start screaming for someone, anyone, to help her when the door opens and the man who brought her up here walks back in.

 

“Please,” she says quickly. “Please.” The itchiness has stolen every other word from her vocabulary.

 

He stills by the door, looking carefully at her. She’s terrified of him, but her need is greater than her fear.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says finally, gently.

 

She shifts as much as she can, showing him a flash of her arms behind her back. “Please,” she says again.

 

He gets it. He walks over to her, slowly. He saw her flinch downstairs; he’s afraid to touch her again. “I can’t completely uncuff you,” he tells her. She nearly sobs. “But I can move your hands to the front, it will probably be more comfortable.”

 

She does sob. “Please.” He pauses, and she finds one more word. “Yes. Please.”

 

He comes within arms length of her, but she’s too preoccupied to even be scared. It seems to take him an eternity, but he opens the handcuffs and quickly maneuvers her hands around the front. She has a desperate desire to snatch her hands back and just scratch, as hard as she can, but she’s dissected enough people with wrist fractures to do everything she can to avoid that particular injury. She stays as still as she can as the cuffs clink back onto her skin.

 

Just as he’s tightening them, the door opens again and Jane walks in. She closes the door behind her and watches coldly, a looming and furious presence.

 

Maura notices her, but can’t do anything but lift her hands up and vigorously scratch and scratch. It’s better than sex, better than having a joint popped back into place, better than freedom. She can’t stop herself; she shamelessly bends and twists her head, doing everything she can to scratch every inch of her matted head with her too-long nails. She can’t stop. If she keeps scratching, if she fixes this one thing, maybe she can fix everything.

 

Jane watches in disgust as the women nearly scratches herself raw. She hadn’t looked like a tweaker, but this is certainly meth head behavior. She looks like an animal and Jane takes vicious pleasure in watching such a degrading display. It goes on for so long that it’s sickening, but Jane takes pleasure in the way her gut churns.

 

It’s her partner who finally intervenes. “Stop.” Softly at first, then louder. “Stop.” Maura doesn’t stop. She’s moved back to her forehead, scratching and scratching and scratching. He finally reaches up and pulls her hands away from her head. He holds them out, away from her, until she meets his eyes. “You’ll hurt yourself,” he says gently.

 

She looks at him for a moment like she hasn’t even noticed him. Then she seems to come back to herself with a start. She jerks her hand back like a frightened deer, eyes wide and chest heaving with small panicked breaths at his proximity.

 

“It’s okay.” He tries to use his most calming voice, the voice Jane is teaching him to use on children who have just experienced something horrible. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

 

Maura’s eyes flick to Jane, still looming from the corner by the door. Jane arches her eyebrow and gives a cruel smile, not even breaking eye contact with Maura as she speaks to Frost. “C’mon Frost. You know better than to make promises you can’t keep.”

 

“Jane.” He says it like a warning, although even Maura can tell that he has no power here. If Jane wants to hurt her, she can.

 

Jane pushes herself off the wall and stalks toward the table, cruel smile still in place. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

 

* * *

 

“Name?”

 

“Doctor Maura Isles.”

 

“How do you spell it?” Frost has brought a laptop but his fingers hover a few inches over the keys.

 

“M-a-u-r-a. Isles like the Greek Isles.”

 

Jane has moved back to the corner of the room and is still standing, leaning against the window with her arms crossed over her chest. “What other way is there to spell it?” She curls her lip, clearly disgusted at Maura for even mentioning it.

 

“Like, walk down the…”

 

“That’s stupid.”

 

Maura shrugs a little. Frost ignores Jane and plows through, collecting her address (a very nice neighborhood that makes Jane snort with derision) and her birthdate. “Occupation?”

 

“Forensic Pathologist, Mass General hospital system.”

 

Frost looks up. “You’re a medical examiner?”

 

She nods. Frost looks over his shoulder at Jane, who just motions him to keep going. But they both know what that means. People that work with dead people are just weird, and Maura wouldn’t be the first person to take that death obsession a little too far.

 

“How long have you been at Mass General?”

 

“Four months.”

 

“Where were you before that?”

 

“Chicago.”

 

“How did you come to be in the possession of Kylie Rizzoli?” Frost asks this question in the same tone of voice as the matter-of-fact ones, a trick Jane taught him. It takes Maura a few seconds to process it, so she stammers her response.

 

“I – um,” she looks up to see Jane grinning at her and she’s forcibly reminded of a hawk about to strike. She shrinks into herself and vows to only look at Frost from now on. “I was kidnapped.” She says it softly, and Frost’s eyes flick up to her. She fights down tears, licks her lips, grabs her courage in both hands, and speaks quickly for the first time. “He was holding us on Atlantic Ave between Pine and Chestnut. The house is one story with blue shutters and a beige exterior. Please, you have to hurry; he won’t be there long.”

 

Jane moves forward like a predator, leaning over Maura across the table. “What the hell kind of trap are you trying to send us into?”

 

Maura feels her confidence slip through her fingers. “No, nothing. Not a trap.”

 

“What’s your game?” Fast, aggressive, hateful.

 

“No, nothing. He really—“

 

Jane interrupts her, standing back upright, surveying Maura with detached distaste. “What kind of idiots do you take us for?”

 

“Please, please,” Maura begs. “Please, you can keep me here as long as you want, please just send people there to get him. What time is it?”

 

Her change of subject seems to surprise an answer out of Frost. “3:47.”

 

“He’ll be up soon, please, once he’s up he’ll see that we’re gone and then he’ll be gone. Please.”

 

“We’re not going anywhere.”

 

Maura breaks her vow and looks up in Jane’s eyes. For just a second, she lets down her barriers and shows Jane just how hurt she is. “Please.” Her voice is firmer now. She doesn’t blink. “He’ll never stop coming after us. She won’t ever be safe. He’ll kill me and he’ll take her again. Please. Just send someone. Please.”

 

Jane hasn’t broken the eye contact either. For the first time, a tiny thought that this woman might not be the enemy trickles into the side of her brain. She looks over to Frost, who is clearly waiting for her direction. But then she thinks of the tiny little light-up shoes on her sweet baby girl and she pushes the trickle away. “You cooperate with us, and maybe we’ll cooperate with you, how about that?”

 

Maura makes a sound that might be a sob, and the thought trickles back. She relents enough to sit down next to Frost. From her same level, she can better see how small and fragile the woman is. And how dirty. “When were you kidnapped?”

 

“Last Saturday. June 9th.”

 

“Where were you taken from?”

 

“The parking lot of Whole Foods.”

 

“Which Whole Foods?”

 

“In the West End.”

 

“How did he do it?”

 

Maura looks at her, confused.

 

“How did he kidnap you? Did he knock you out, throw you in the trunk, what?”

 

“He…” Maura stammers. She looks down at her hands, still cuffed in her lap. “He parked next to me and approached me as I was getting out of the car. He held a gun to me. He showed me that there was a girl in his car. She…” Maura pauses, swallows, and then continues in a softer voice. “She had a bomb attached to her car seat. He said if I didn’t get in his car he’d blow her up.”

 

The room is dead quiet. Then Jane speaks, more softly than Maura has ever heard her. “Who was the child.” It isn’t a question, but it has to be said.

 

“It was Kylie. I – I recognized her from the news.”

 

“What did you do?” Frost’s voice, this time, gentle and encouraging.

 

Maura looks up at him, tears in her eyes. “I got in the car.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a long pause in the room. Finally the silence is broken by Frost’s fingers flying over his keyboard, but that sound isn’t loud enough to cut the discomfort. Maura’s itchy again but doesn’t dare scratch while Jane is looking at her like that. She settles for shifting in her seat and suddenly hisses as pain stabs her side.

 

She instinctively tries to cover the pain with her hands but she’s forgotten about the cuffs. She ends up just making a quick jerking movement that hurts her even more. She closes her eyes, knits her eyebrows, and tries to breathe, even just a little.

 

Jane watches as Maura sinks into herself, clearly in a great deal of pain. For the first time, she really takes in the state of Maura’s clothes and hair. They look pretty authentically terrible to her. She knows, of course, it isn’t hard to fake the “recently kidnapped” look, but something about how Maura looks has a ring of authenticity to it. And that kind of pain is pretty hard to fake.

 

Frost interrupts her inspection. “Doctor Maura Isles,” he reads from the screen. “Reported missing on Wednesday, June 13th, 11:08am.”

 

Jane’s eyes flick back to Maura, who seems to have overcome the worst of her pain. Or, at least, her eyes are open. “Wednesday, huh. When did you say you were kidnapped, again?”

 

Maura hates Jane in that moment, hates her with swell of emotion that floods her entire body. Hates her for what she’s insinuating. Hates her for making Maura say it. Maura bites her lip to keep the tears and rage down. “Saturday,” she says in her most clipped voice.

 

“Saturday,” Jane drawls. “Hmm. What do you make of that, partner?”

 

Frost is furious at Jane’s cruelty. He understands it, of course, but he’s completely horrified to see his role model falling down into the pit so many of their brothers and sisters in blue have fallen into before. Taking pleasure in a suspect’s pain. Dealing with cruelty by dishing it back out. He shakes his head and forcibly seizes the reins of the conversation back from her. “Why do you think you weren’t reported missing until Wednesday?”

 

His tone isn’t friendly, exactly, but it doesn’t make Maura feel like he’d be happy if he could watch her slowly be eaten by wild dogs.

 

“I don’t like to guess.”

 

Jane snorts. “Try.”

 

“Who reported me missing?”

 

Frost checks his computer. “It says, ‘a co-worker, Susie Chang.’”

 

Maura nods. “Susie is a subordinate of mine. It’s feasible that she didn’t feel comfortable reporting me missing on Monday or Tuesday in case she simply hadn’t been informed of my whereabouts.”

 

Jane leans back in her chair. “Sure, that sounds feasible.” She looks Maura directly in the eye, challenge written all over her face. “But what about everyone in your life who isn’t Susie Chang?”

 

Maura swallows down everything and tries to answer in as measured and clinical a voice as she can. “I don’t have any family in the area, and I don’t have many friends. My social life is primarily confined to formal events, and I would probably have to miss months of formal events to be considered missing by my peers. I’m the supervisor at Mass General, so I don’t report my whereabouts to anyone. Other than Susie and the other lab technicians, there isn’t anyone I see on a regular enough basis to report me missing.”

 

It’s the saddest thing Frost has ever heard. He’s sure that he’d be reported missing within 24 hours. Between Jane, his mom, Frankie, his college roommates, his other buddies, and the formidable Angela Rizzoli, he knows there’s no way in hell he could be missing for five days without anyone knowing.

 

Jane’s mind is on a similar course. Seeing that her mother threatens to report her missing if she doesn’t call back within 40 minutes, she’s pretty sure nine hours is the longest it would be possible for her to be off the grid without a hue and cry going up across New England. Most of the time that kind of constant contact grates on her, but in the dark of night in the middle of a tough case, it’s one of her deepest comforts.

 

Jane opens her mouth to respond but is cut off as the door swings open again. A man stands there, sloppily dressed in a patrol uniform. Maura can tell in an instant that he and Jane are related – they’re practically identical.

 

“Jane,” he says urgently, “we got a situation downstairs.”

 

“What? Is Kylie okay?”

 

“Well…” Both Maura and Jane sit bolt upright, the former letting out another hiss of pain at the sudden movement. “I think she’s okay, but she’s totally freaking out. She crawled under a shelf in the pantry of the café and screams anytime we come anywhere near her. Even Tommy and Lydia.”

 

Jane swears.

 

“Let me see her.” Three sets of eyes swivel to Maura, still cuffed in her chair. “Please, she’s scared. Let me see her, I can calm her down.”

 

“Absolutely not.” Jane doesn’t even look at Maura as she shuts her down. “Frankie, what happened? She was fine when I left her with you.”

 

“I dunno! Tommy and Lydia showed up and she was fine, seemed happy to see them, but then when they said it was time to take her home, she just lost it. She kept screaming ‘more, more, more,’ but didn’t seem to want anything!” He tugs on his hair. Maura is suddenly aware that it’s four in the morning and most of them were probably sleeping when she staggered into the station. “Then Tommy tried to pick her up and she screamed right in his ear and he dropped her and she ran into the pantry and hasn’t let us near her since.”

 

Before Jane can speak, Maura interjects. “Could she have been saying ‘mo,’ instead of ‘more’?”

 

Frankie thinks for a second. “Yeah, I guess so.”

 

Maura turns back to Jane, pleading. “That’s me. Please, Jane, you heard her call me that. Please, she’s just afraid. She needs me. Please, let me help.”

 

Jane seems conflicted. It’s the first time Maura’s actually called her by her name.

 

“If I hurt her, you can shoot me. Please.”

 

Despite everything, that makes Jane smile. She holds her hand out to Frost for the key, then walks over to Maura and unlocks the handcuffs. “I’ll hold you to that.”

 

* * *

 

They wait for the elevator, silent and nervous. Maura rubs her wrists absently, and Jane feels an unexpected rush of guilt at the red lines there. Finally Maura speaks quietly. “Tommy and Lydia – are those her parents?”

 

“…Yes?” Jane’s voice is confused. Maura had known exactly who she was, hadn’t she?

 

Maura just nods. “She didn’t know their names,” she says softly. “I asked, but she just told me they were Mommy and Daddy.”

 

Jane swallows, heavily.

 

* * *

 

They exit the elevator and Jane walks Maura quickly to café attached to the lobby, eager to avoid introducing her to Tommy and Lydia. _Hey brother, this is the woman that either tried to kill your kid or saved her life. I’ll let you know when I figure it out. Now excuse me while I unleash her back on Kylie, be right back._

 

From the door of the pantry, they can both hear soft whimpering. Maura’s hand comes up to her chest for a just a moment, she swallows, and then she steps carefully into the dark space. “Tiny girl?” She calls softly. The whimpering abruptly stops.

 

Maura keeps walking, Jane a few feet behind her. A small scuffling sound stops Maura near the flour and sugar. She bends down, and Jane can see the stiffness in her movements. She drops heavily to all fours, and Jane gets her first glimpse at the ruined bottoms of Maura’s feet.

 

Maura scoots herself as close to where Kylie is hiding as she can with her adult-sized body. Then she starts talking, and Jane is shocked that she doesn’t start with baby talk or in a cloying tone of voice. She talks to Kylie just like she would to an adult. “It’s been a really scary hour, hasn’t it? I missed you while I was upstairs. Were you scared too?” Kylie makes a small sound that Jane can’t quite interpret. Maura keeps going. “I heard you were pretty scared of going home with your Mommy and Daddy. I’m a little scared to go home too. But can I tell you something very important?” At that, Kylie scoots out from under the lowest shelf and climbs onto Maura’s lap. The look of trust on her face seals something for Jane. Whether or not this woman colluded in abducting her niece, Kylie loves her. Jane probably shouldn’t shoot her.

 

Maura reaches up and tucks some of Kylie’s hair behind her ear. “Hi, tiny girl.” She smiles down at the creature in her lap, then speaks slowly and clearly. “Here is something really important I need you to hear. Are you ready?” Kylie nods solemnly. “You are safe now. The badman cannot hurt you anymore. You are not in the badhouse anymore, and he can never get you and take you back there. Do you understand?”

 

“Never ever?” Kylie is doubtful.

 

“Never ever. Your Auntie Jane is sending police officers right now to take the badman to jail. And he’s going to be in jail forever, so he can never come scare you or hurt you again.”

 

“Can he hurt you, Mo?”

 

Maura’s entire heart melts. “No, tiny girl, but thank you for asking. He can’t hurt me, he can’t hurt you, he can’t hurt anyone. The badman is gone. All gone. And I know you’ve been scared for a lot of days and nights, but you don’t need to be scared anymore. You’re safe now.”

 

Kylie seems to be thinking hard. “Really really gone?” she asks finally.

 

“Really really gone. So now, it’s time for you to go home with your Mommy and your Daddy. They are so happy to see you, they missed you a lot. And you’re going to be very safe with them.”

 

“Are you coming?”

 

Maura smiles sadly. “No, tiny girl, I have to go back to my own house.”

 

“Why!?” Kylie is instantly irate. “MY Mo.”

 

Maura’s guts squeeze together. “Do you remember…do you remember how, before the badhouse and the badman, you lived with your Mommy and Daddy?” Kylie nods. “Do you remember how I didn’t live with you then? It was just you and Mommy and Daddy and Hoppy and Flappy.”

 

Jane starts, hearing the names of Kylie’s very special stuffed animals coming out of the mouth of this total stranger. It feels like finding your own embarrassing prom picture in the wallet of someone you’ve never met.

 

Kylie nods again. “Well it’s going to be like that again. So you’re going to go home and live with Mommy and Daddy.”

 

“An’ Hoppy an’ Flappy.” Kylie interrupts.

 

Maura smiles at her. “And Hoppy and Flappy. And I’m going to go live at my house with Bass.”

 

“The turtis.”

  
“Tortoise, yes, exactly. And when you’re at your house, I want you to remember something. Can you do that for me?”

 

Kylie nods one last time, her face very serious about her task.

 

“Whenever you get scared, I need you to remember that I love you, and that you’re safe. Can you do that?”

 

“Yes. I member.”

 

“So when you get scared, what will you remember?”

 

Kylie pokes her in the chest with a little finger. “You love me and I safe.”

 

Maura kisses her head and brushes a tear off her **own** cheek before Kylie can see it and ask about it. “Good. Now, let’s go back out there so your Mommy and Daddy can take you home, okay? Up you go.”

 

Kylie clambers off her lap and stands, more obedient than Jane has ever seen her. Maura struggles to rise from the floor for the third time tonight, but this time Jane reaches out her hand and gently pulls her up. The rapid altitude change makes Maura dizzy and she steadies herself against the sugar for a moment, only belatedly realizing that Jane has grabbed her shoulders to keep her upright. As her vision clears, she nods to Jane and motions to Kylie, and the three of them slowly walk back into the lobby.

 

A few moments later, Jane and Maura wait for the elevator to take them back to interrogation. Jane is surprised when Maura speaks softly. “Thank you for not shooting me.”

 

Jane chuckles, and Maura looks over, a bit startled by the sound.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story involves kidnapping and violence. None of it is "on screen," and I tried hard not to make any of it graphic, but much of it is discussed. I'll do my best to flag specific chapters here, but if the type of things that can happen when kidnapped trigger you, I recommend not moving forward with reading this story.

They settle back into their original seats in interrogation. Jane gives Maura a long measuring look, and then pointedly puts the handcuffs aside. Maura raises an eyebrow in question, but says nothing.

 

“I can still shoot you, you know.”

 

Maura almost smiles. “I know.”

 

There’s a long pause. Then they both speak at once.

 

“Thank you for—“

 

“Please, send—“

 

They look at each other awkwardly. Maura drops her gaze and blinks rapidly, submissive.

 

Jane clears her throat. “I was just gonna say, thanks for that, down there. She—“ What comes next seems hard for Jane to say. “She clearly feels safe with you.”

 

Maura nods and says nothing.

 

“And you were going to say…”

 

“Oh.” For the second time, she pulls herself together and speaks with intense urgency. Jane can tell she’s used to bossing people around—even after what she’s been through, some of it shows through as she speaks, just at this moment. “I know you don’t trust me, and I understand that. But please, please send someone to his house. He’ll be up soon, please. I’ll stay here as long as you want, I’ll answer any questions you have, I’ll do anything you want. Just, please, don’t let him get away.”

 

Jane considers her for a long moment before abruptly changing the subject. “You’re pretty banged up.”

 

Maura’s eyes snap to hers. She says nothing. She’s afraid.

 

“Legally, I should ship you off to a hospital before I question you. But how about we do each other a favor. I send a team to the house, you answer my questions. Here. Right now.”

 

Maura doesn’t even hesitate. “Deal.”

 

* * *

 

“What do you know about him?”

 

Maura rattles off facts like a computer. “His name is James Fleiss. He’s 32 years old, resides in Dorchester. Currently unemployed, formerly worked in construction. Unmarried. His girlfriend was pregnant with his first child. A girl.”

 

Jane and Frost both gape at her. “How the hell do you know all that?”

 

Maura swallows thickly. “I knew who he was before he kidnapped me.”

 

“You knew him?” Frost’s eyes nearly bug out.

 

“No. I mean, no, we hadn’t met. But I knew who he was. He was a person of interest in a suspicious death at Mass General.”

 

Jane looks askance at her. “Hospital cases don’t have people of interest.”

 

“They do if they’re going to turn into police cases.”

 

Jane huffs, eyebrows raised. “Then why wasn’t this already a police case?”

 

“I was waiting to find proof.”

 

God, it’s like pulling teeth. “Proof of _what_?”

 

“I suspected him of murdering his girlfriend and their unborn daughter.”

 

Jane and Frost fall silent. Jane feels guilty again for her frustration at Maura. Her brain is tingling that Maura seems pretty fucked up from what she’s been through. Jane should be nicer.

 

Jane has no idea.

 

* * *

 

_She’d been a medical examiner for a while. She’d seen a lot of grisly cases. Chicago produces deaths just as grim as what she’d seen in Uganda and Sudan. She’d been surprised by that at first, but she’d quickly grown used to the daily atrocities again. She’d learned to close herself off even more, letting the pain and horror bounce off her shell. She’d learned to shuck it off in the morgue, to keep work at work and home at home. They called her the Ice Queen in Chicago, and she was sure the name would somehow travel to Boston. In a way, she’s always found it to be a title of respect. She’s hard, harder than the rest of them. The best._

_But this case, it reached even her._

_This young woman, dead. Her fetus, nearly 7 months grown, dead inside of her. Maura had cut the poor thing out of her, held it in her hands. It could have been viable, if they’d been able to deliver it. But both mother and unborn daughter had been admitted to the hospital after it was too late. They both died on one of the floors above her, and now she slowly cut each of them open, searching for a clue about what killed them._

_She suspected foul play, but until she had a solid lead she couldn’t go to the police. The woman died in the hospital, it was a hospital case until she could prove it wasn’t. The burden was on her shoulders. There was clearly trauma. The doctors on the 10 th floor guessed she fell down a flight of stairs; the old lady who called the ambulance found her at the bottom of one, at least, slick with rain. The injuries were consistent with a fall, but Maura wasn’t satisfied. So she dug deeper. She held their hearts in her hands. Their brains. Their lungs and their livers. _

_She trusted them to tell her what happened to them._

_She suspected the father. It’s cliché, but she did. She ran medical records and was pleasantly surprised to find a paternity test on file from a few months earlier. His name was James Fleiss. She googled him, and something about his face scared her. The last thing she did on Friday, June 8 th was promise them that if he was responsible, she’d make sure he was brought to justice._

* * *

 

_Maura hadn’t even started the autopsy on the pregnant woman yet when her phone buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. She was embarrassed to be disrupting the all-staff meeting, but then everyone else’s phones started to go off too. She felt a touch of dread. She knew what that meant. Amber alert. Missing child. She checked the notification. “Kylie Rizzoli, three years old,” it said. “Last seen, in a park in Dorchester with a babysitter.” It was Wednesday, June 6 th._

_Maura tucked her phone away and went downstairs. She put on her gown and gloves, and began cutting into the pregnant woman, extracting everything she needed for the labs._

_That night, the little blonde girl was all over the news. She was related to a homicide detective, apparently a known name around Boston. The news was full of grim cops saying things like, “Kylie is one of our own.” Maura felt horribly sad for the little girl, either dead or soon to be dead._

_By Saturday, she’d nearly forgotten. Even though Kylie was still all over the news, the pregnant woman pushed everything else from her mind. Her work/life balance had been disrupted. She’d barely slept, working diligently to find something on the father to send to the cops._

_She’d been so startled to have a gun pressed to her back that she hadn’t recognized him, not at first. But she’d recognized Kylie. The sweet little blonde baby girl, strapped to enough c-4 to turn the parking lot into a crater six feet in either direction. Even through the window, Maura could see the tear streaks on her cheeks, and what looked like a bruise swelling on her temple._

_“Get in, or she dies.”_

_She didn’t even think about it. She quickly opened the door and climbed into the backseat. He handcuffed her to the back of the passenger’s seat, out of reach of the little girl in the cheap car seat. “Try anything, and she dies.”_

_Maura obediently sat there, trying to memorize the route to where he was taking her. She was worried that he hadn’t blindfolded her. She was pretty sure this meant he was going to kill her, and soon. The ride was eerily silent. If Maura had known more about children, she’d have found Kylie’s silence disturbing, but she was too focused on the directions to even remember the girl existed._

_She still didn’t recognize him._

_Finally they arrived to a dilapidated house in a neighborhood of dilapidated houses. He hustled both of them into one with closed curtains and shoved them into the basement before retreating upstairs himself. He didn’t chain them up, but he locked the door soundly. There was only one window and it was tiny, covered in bars._

_Maura looked around and saw nothing she could use to escape. She was about to despair, and then a little hand tugged on her skirt. “Did the badman tooked you too?”_

_Maura looked down into bright blue eyes, something in her heart contracting at the young little voice. She remembered the amber alert. Three years old. Last seen in the park. “You know,” she said in a measured voice. “I think he did.”_

* * *

 

“He did it, by the way.” Maura speaks to the table. “I was right. He told me. He snapped her neck and pushed her down a flight of stairs.”

 

It’s Frost who speaks this time. “He confessed?”

 

Maura nods, slowly. “He didn’t seem to understand that what he did to her was wrong. He said it like it was nothing. But he…he regretted killing the child, almost as soon as he’d done it.”

 

“How do you know that?” For once Jane’s voice isn’t accusatory.

 

Maura looks up, right into Jane’s eyes. “Because he kidnapped Kylie to replace her.”

 

Jane blanches. “He kidnapped my niece— ** _my_** niece—to replace the daughter he murdered?”

 

Maura nods, dropping her gaze back down.

 

“Holy shit.” Jane runs her hand through her hair, repeatedly. “Holy shit. That’s so fucked up.”

 

Maura says it so softly Jane almost doesn’t hear it. “There’s more.”

 

Jane looks at her and really sees her, for what might be the first time. Sees that she’s hurt and scared and fucked up and afraid. And that she’s still here, talking, telling them what they need to know. That she’s still going to bat for Kylie. Still doing everything she can to keep that tiny girl alive. Jane’s voice softens, then, slipping unintentionally into how she speaks to victims. “What is it?”

 

“He knew who I was when he took me.” Maura takes a deep breath, winces at the pain in her rib, and tries to steady herself. When she says this out loud, she knows there is no going back. She’ll be putting all her trust in Jane, sharing this most vulnerable and scared part of herself with someone that, not thirty minutes ago, was threatening to shoot her in cold blood. “He took me because I was the person who did the autopsy on his girlfriend and his daughter. He was obsessed with me, with how intimately I’d known them.”

 

“Holy shit.” It’s just a breath this time. Maura isn’t even sure Jane knows she said it out loud. “He told you that?”

 

Maura nods again. “He said—“ Her voice trembles. Jane can see her pulling herself together. Jane feels something in her gut loosen while something in her chest contracts. “He said that my hands were sacred. He thought that because I was the last person to touch the two of them, I could infuse him with their spirit. He was obsessed with the fact that I’d held their organs in my hands. He—he wanted me to tell him about it. What their hearts felt like, their stomachs. He…” she nearly stops, but pushes through. “He made me use my hands on him, too.” She stops, blinking, unable to say anything more.

 

Jane has rarely felt so repulsed. She’s sensitive about hands. “That’s fucking sick.” She says it without thinking.

 

Maura’s eyes snap up, flashing, for the first time, with fury. “ ** _I know_** **_it was fucking sick_**!” It’s practically a scream. “ ** _Everything he did was fucking sick! Everything_** —“ She inhales and stops, just as abruptly as she began. She begins to panic, and pushes her lips together, trying to take back her words, her anger. She can’t believe how quickly she lost control. Even though a part of her knows it’s absurd, she braces herself for a blow.

 

Her rib twinges at the memory of punishment.

 

Jane is perfectly still, watching her. Watching her rage and then shut down. Watching her curl in on herself, terrified of punishment.

 

Jane is repulsed with herself. This person is not the enemy. This person is hurt. This person was abused. This person is terrified of her.

 

“Maura.” Jane says it softly, and they both know it’s the first time she’s used her name. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

 

They both know Maura doesn’t believe her, but they’re both glad she said it.

 

* * *

_It was Kylie who taught her to how to survive in the house. Maura didn’t know enough about three-year-olds to realize that pumping one for information probably wasn’t the wisest course of action, so she did it constantly. She learned that Kylie was hungry. She learned that Kylie was allowed upstairs sometimes but she had to sleep down in the basement. Kylie told her that crying was not allowed, and if you messed up, you would get a hit. Kylie told her that you had to take a vitamin to go to sleep at night and that when you woke up your mouth would taste like carpet. Kylie told her that there was no TV and no computer and no books, even for bedtime. Kylie told her there was no park or backyard and if you ran around inside you would get a hit. Kylie told her that there were no nightlights and you had to go potty exactly when he told you and if you couldn’t hold it and went in the corner of the basement, you would get a hit. If you asked for more food, you would get a hit. If you asked for your Mommy or Daddy, he would tell you that he was your Daddy now and that Mommy was a bitch. If you said no, you would get a hit._

_Kylie told her that she wasn’t Kylie anymore. Now her name was Emily. If anyone said “Kylie,” they would get a hit. When she said the name “Emily,” Kylie’s eyes filled with tears. Something in Maura stirred, furious and protective._

_Maura got down on her knees and looked into her eyes. “He is wrong,” she said firmly. “The badman is lying to you. Your name is Kylie. He is not your Daddy. Your real Mommy and Daddy love you and miss you and they are coming to get you. Until they do, I’ll take care of you. Your name is Kylie. You don’t live here. He is not your Daddy. Do you understand?”_

_She nodded, scared. “If you tell, you’ll get a hit.”_

_“Then it will be our secret, okay, tiny girl?”_

_Maura held out her hand to shake, unaware this was an absurd thing to do with a preschooler. But Kylie somberly put her tiny hand into Maura’s. “Okay, Mo. Secret.”_

 

* * *

 

_Later that first day, he brought both of them upstairs. Maura was sure he was going to tie her up, but instead he put a clunky child-sized tool belt around Kylie’s waist. It looked ridiculous, until Maura saw that it was wired with c-4. He held the detonator in his hand._

_“You try anything, and she dies.”_

_  
Maura nodded. He looked over at Kylie. “You remember the rule?”_

_Kylie spoke quickly. “Touch the belt an’ get a hit.”_

_He nodded. “Good girl, Emily.”_

_Maura swore to herself that she was going to rescue this child._

_He turned to Maura, eyes cold. “So happy you could join us, Dr. Isles.”_

_Maura started, suddenly ten times more terrified than she’d been before. “How do…how do you know who I am?”_

_He smiled, high and cruel. “Oh doctor. I don’t think you understand. You’re special. I chose you, I found you, I selected you. Because you’re special.”_

_Every bit of Maura turned cold, but she tried to keep her voice steady. “Why?”_

_He leaned back but maintained too-intense eye contact. “Because you and I were the last people to put our hands on Kara. And I bet you had your hands on little Emily, didn’t you? I never got the chance to touch her. But I bet you did. You had your hands on both of them, in both of them. And now I’ll feel your hands on me. A happy little family circle.” He spun his finger in a lazy circle in front of her face._

_Revulsion doused Maura. She recognized him now. He was James Fleiss. He had kidnapped her and he was going to kill her out of some perverse obsession with the girlfriend and child he’d murdered._

_He’d named Kylie after his dead baby. She was pretty sure that made her his new wife._

_She refused to die like this._

* * *

 

Jane shudders. Every word Maura says chills her spine, freezes her blood. The idea of her baby girl subjected to that monster for twelve long days—horrendous. The idea of this woman subjected to him for nine, and then to get out and get that kind of treatment from Jane—unacceptable.

 

She tries to bring the questions to a close. It’s past four in the morning and she can see they’re all fading quickly. “How did you escape?”

 

“I removed the bars from the windows of the basement room, drugged him, and then ran.” Maura has reverted to a monotone. All three of them know it’s because she’s exhausted and traumatized, and that she really shouldn’t be answering any more questions. But Jane has to know.

 

“How did you get the bars off?”

 

She isn’t even looking up from the table anymore. “I stole a spoon from the kitchen on the third day. I unscrewed the bars at night.”

 

“Where did you get the drugs?” Jane’s voice is still soft.

 

* * *

 

_He put them back in the basement as the first night began to fall. As soon as he was gone, Kylie started to whimper. “Don’ want vitamin, don’ want vitamin, don’ want!”_

_Something Kylie had said started to make sense to Maura. She hurried over the little girl, dropping down to sit in front of her. “Hey, tiny girl.” Kylie looked up at her, hugging her knees close to her chest. “Does the vitamin make you sleepy?” Kylie nodded. Maura let out a deep breath. “I’m going to teach you something, okay?”_

* * *

_It took nine nights, but Maura and Kylie managed to stash enough of the “vitamins” to make what Maura estimated to be an incredibly serious but non-lethal dose of the sleeping pills. The third night he’d gotten suspicious, so Kylie had to swallow it in front of him. But all the other nights, she’d done as Maura taught her and tucked the pill under her tongue. As soon as he was gone, she spat it into Maura’s hand, and Maura hid them in different spots all around the room so that if he found one, he wouldn’t find them all._

_The pills had no markings on them, and Maura wasn’t able to find a bottle or packaging for them during her upstairs time. She had no idea how strong they were, but they hadn’t killed Kylie or put her out for longer than the night, so they couldn’t have been full strength. She just prayed eight doses would be enough._

 

* * *

  

“The address you gave us is over six miles away. How did you get here?” Jane’s seen the bottoms of her feet, so she has a guess. But she’s hoping to be wrong.

 

She’s not wrong. “I ran. I didn’t trust anyone, and this was the closest station that I could remember.”

 

Jane’s voice is even softer than before. “You ran six miles, barefoot, carrying a three-year-old, in the middle of the night?”

 

Maura finally looks up. “What choice did I have?”

 

* * *

 

_Maura spent a lot of the time in the basement teaching Kylie things. She taught her how to curl up in a ball so if she got a kick it wouldn’t do permanent damage. She taught her how to plug up her ears and hum to drown out other sounds. She taught her signals for when she should close her eyes and plug her ears and when it was safe to stop. She taught her how to sleep without a pillow and how to brush her hair with her fingers. She taught her how to be picked up and held so that none of her arms or legs stuck out, so in case Maura got a hit Kylie wouldn’t get one by accident. She taught her to remember her real Mommy and Daddy, but to never mention them around the badman. She taught her how to stay silent and nice so the badman wouldn’t be upset._

_She taught her so well that Kylie didn’t get a single hit or kick the entire time Maura was in the house._

_Kylie taught Maura a lot too. She taught her the alphabet song and twinkle twinkle and the hand motions for itsy bitsy spider. She taught her to count to 20 on her fingers and toes, even though Maura always wanted her to leave her shoes and socks on. She taught her how to cuddle and spoon. She taught her about imagination games and about playing doctor, which mostly involved pressing her little ear to Maura’s chest and saying “ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom.” She taught her that little girls like stories and lullabies when they’re trying to go to sleep. She taught her that most of the stories Maura made up were boring, but that when she made up stories about Kylie, they were interesting. She taught her about Hoppy and Flappy and her pretty grown-up bed. She taught her about her Auntie Jay, who was big and strong and fun and a police. She taught her that ouches like to be kissed, even if they had just been kissed not even 20 minutes ago._

_Kylie taught her that Maura could love someone more fiercely after two days than she’d thought was possible after a lifetime._

_Maura learned some things on her own, too. She learned that she had to be sneaky, but with some careful redistribution she could get Kylie almost as many nutrients as she needed each day. She learned what her own bare minimums were, and then learned to live on less. She learned not to make a sound when she was hit or kicked, or Kylie would get upset. She learned how to doze completely alert, so Kylie was never left unattended. She learned to turn off her brain and do whatever she had to when Kylie was wearing the belt. She learned how to survive, and she learned how to be patient. She learned to prepare, so that when the moment came, everything would be perfect. They would escape._

 

* * *

  

The last question is the softest yet. “What happened to your shoes?”

 

Maura’s lip trembles for the first time. “I left them behind. They were heels – I couldn’t have run in them.” She presses her fingers into her palms, hard. “They were my favorites.”

 

Frost thinks this is an insane thing to be worried about, but Jane understands. This is just another thing he has stolen from her.

 

“Maura.” Jane says it softly, kindly, but with purpose. “Look at me.” It takes a long moment, but Maura pulls her eyes up to meet Jane’s. She’s startled by the gentleness she sees there. “You’re safe now, Maura. You’re safe.”

 

Maura nods once, then twice, then puts her head in her hands and cries.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some description of Maura's injuries in this one. Mention of a rape kit (not used).

Frost’s phone rings, shrill in the stuffy interrogation room. It cuts through the sounds of Maura’s soft cries, announcing, in the way that only a ring or a knock at four in the morning can, something life-changing.

 

Maura’s head snaps up and she watches him warily, tears drying on her face.

 

He walks outside to take the call. Jane and Maura sit in the room, silence heavy around them. Maura’s breath sounds loud in her ears. Jane pushes on her scars. After an eternity, Frost walks back in and sits down. He speaks primarily to Jane, but Maura knows his words are for her too.

 

“The units reported to the house on Atlantic Ave. They found a man matching the description sleeping in one of the bedrooms. He appeared drugged, but woke up after some effort. They searched the house and found a significant amount of explosive ordinance, including a small belt and a car seat that were both wired to blow. They found evidence of captivity in the basement of the house. They arrested him and he’s on his way to the county holding facility out by the Bay. They asked me to go coordinate with missing persons over there. Korsak’s on his way now to observe the forensic team going over the house.”

 

Jane looks over at Maura, who seems like she hasn’t yet registered anything Frost said.

 

Jane turns her attention back to her young partner. “Thanks, Frost. I’ll finish up here. Let me know if you need any help with the boys.”

 

Frost gives her a measuring glance. They both knew that he’s seen her at her very worst tonight.

 

Jane flicks her wrist at him, dismissing his concerns. “Call up Chavez for me, will you? And stop worrying. I’ll be nice.”

 

Frost nods, then turns to Maura. “Dr. Isles?” She turns her head to him, her eyes still robot-blank. “We got him. You’re both safe now.” Something seems to happen in her face. She nods, slowly, and then, for the first time, gives a small disbelieving smile.

 

* * *

 

After he leaves, there are a few moments of uncomfortable silence. Neither woman knows what to say. Both are numbed by the idea that it’s over so soon – that within an hour of Kylie being brought to the station, her kidnapper is in custody.

 

Maura has barely eaten or slept in nearly ten days. She’s still wearing the clothes she’d been kidnapped in. Everything feels like it’s coming to her through murky water, like her brain is sludge. She’s aware, intellectually, of what Frost has told her. But she’s still in this sterile room. She’s still hungry and damaged. She’s still not quite sure of anything.

 

Finally Jane moves, rummaging in her pocket, taking out her phone, and sliding it across the table to Maura. “Here,” she says a little gruffly, to cover up her shame at not offering this earlier. “You can call whoever you want. We just need to collect your clothes and take some photos for evidence, and then you can be picked up and taken for treatment. Ask them to bring you something to wear.”

 

Maura stares down at the phone. She lightly draws three fingers up and down the blank screen, not actually activating any of the buttons. Jane has a disorienting moment in which she notices that, despite the ruins of Maura’s nails, her hands are long and graceful and beautiful.

 

Maura blinks a few times, and then, with one long finger, pushes the phone back a few inches towards Jane, almost in slow motion. “I don’t need to call anyone,” she says softly.

 

Jane’s eyes flick up to Maura’s face. She remembers that Maura had said she doesn’t have many people in the area, but she’s never even heard of anyone who didn’t want to make a single call after nine days missing. “It doesn’t have to be someone to bring you clothes – I mean, it can just be like your parents, or whatever, to tell them you’re okay.”

 

Maura doesn’t look up. She just pushes the phone further over toward Jane. “No, thank you.” She says it quietly but firmly.

 

“Maura—“

 

Maura looks up into her eyes. “I don’t want your pity.” Soft and resolute.

 

“Maura—“

 

“No.” She holds up her hand. “That, right there. I don’t want that. Okay?”

 

Jane understands. She is maybe the one out of a thousand people who could understand. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Before Jane can press the point any further, an older woman with a sleepy face wheels in a cart. Maura recognizes it immediately. It’s an evidence cart – bags for her clothes, swabs for her body, a camera for her injuries. The woman chatters happily with Jane about Kylie as she sets up, and Maura does everything she can to not think that this woman is about to perform an autopsy on her. How many times has Maura gently sliced the clothes from a corpse, putting each item in it’s own special bag, just like these? How many times has she cleaned hair and nails with the special tools on this gleaming cart? How many injuries has she photographed and labeled, documenting a pain she herself thought she’d never have to feel?

 

She feels like a murder victim. She’s absolutely, abjectly terrified. To console herself, she tries to look at Jane – at someone so completely volatile and loud that she radiates alive-ness. If Jane is here and alive, Maura must be alive too.

 

Her eyes sweep the room once, then twice, then a third panicked time. Jane isn’t here. Maura immediately hyperventilates at the thought that she’s alone in this small locked room with a stranger. Jane isn’t here.

 

Even though Jane nearly shot her earlier tonight, Maura feels deeply and profoundly afraid to be without her. She has no idea how Jane came to feel ‘safe,’ but it happened and she does and now, without her, Maura is completely and utterly unsafe. Maybe even already dead. She tries to steady her breathing. She tries to remember that he’s not here. She tries to count to 1,000 by sevens. She tries to feel her heartbeat, wishing Kylie were here to press her tiny head to Maura’s chest and say “ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.”

 

Just like every day for the past nine days, she tries desperately to stave off a panic attack. But tonight, without a tiny little girl depending on her, she fails. Her vision starts to grey, she clutches at her chest, and her breath comes in short useless gasps. But then, about three seconds before her panic crosses the threshold of no return, Jane strides back in the room, holding something soft in her hands and nodding at the stranger.

 

At the sight of her, the sharpest part of Maura’s panic immediately softens. She’s able to actually fill her lungs and her vision clears. She’s too busy trying to wrestle her brain back under her control without anyone noticing to wonder at the strength of her response to Jane’s presence.

 

But Jane is Jane, so she sees in an instant what happened. She wants to kick herself for being so stupid. She quickly drops the bundle she’s carrying on the far side of the table and walks over to Maura, crouching down next to her chair, careful not to touch. “Hey,” she says softly. “Hey, I’m sorry for leaving. I went down to get you some clothes. I should have warned you. I’m really sorry. Are you okay?”

 

The evidence tech stops what she’s doing and looks over, surprised. She’s never heard Detective Rizzoli so sweet and gentle with anyone before.

 

Maura is nodding and swallowing unconvincingly. “I—yes. I’m—sorry.” She brings a hand to her chest, trying to slow her racing heart, trying to apologize for the tears forming in her eyes again.

 

“Don’t be sorry.” It’s a hoarse whisper. “It was my fault.”

 

Maura shakes her head but says nothing. She blindly reaches out and grabs Jane’s hand, holding onto it for dear life. Jane squeezes back, hard. Maura feels in the pulse in her hand, where she’s connected to Jane, finally start to slow. She closes her eyes and breathes, deciding firmly not to wonder about why holding so tightly onto this person is what she needs.

 

Everyone takes a couple of moments, frozen where they are. Finally Maura opens her eyes, straightens up, squeezes Jane’s hand once and then lets go. She looks directly at Jane and even manages a small wry smile, blinking back her tears. “Thank you,” she whispers. Then she clears her throat. “I’m okay, now. We can do…” her gaze casts over at the cart, her stomach tripping over how much she wants to say ‘the autopsy.’ “…This, now.”

 

Jane nods. Maura appreciates that Jane doesn’t ask if she’s sure.

 

* * *

 

Just like an autopsy, it’s not very invasive at the beginning. First it’s just photos of her from each angle. Then taking evidence from her hands, hair, and nails. Jane asks if she’d like to do the DNA swab herself, and she nearly cries with relief.

 

Jane looks her right in the eye when she gently asks if Maura needs a rape kit. When Maura softly shakes her head Jane looks at her deeply for a few beats, then nods. Maura’s not good at gauging these things, but it looked like Jane might have wanted to hug her. She honestly might not have minded.

 

Then, just like an autopsy, it’s time to get invasive.

 

“Maura,” Jane says softly. “Now we’re going to need to collect your clothes and take photos of your injuries, okay? I’ve brought you some things of mine to wear, if that’s okay. They’re just work out clothes, but they’re all clean.”

 

Maura nods, then takes a breath. She locks eyes with Jane, asking silently the question she can’t quite ask out loud.

 

Jane answers it. “I’ll keep you safe, now.”

 

Maura nods again. She removes her shirt and puts it delicately in the bag held out for her. Jane gasps she turns, catching a glimpse of the large mottled bruise over her ribs on her left side. Maura looks down curiously. She hasn’t seen it. She hasn’t felt safe enough since it happened to take off her shirt. She can’t get a good angle to see all of it because she can’t twist much, but she presses on it gingerly and begins creating a mental map of the injury.

 

After a moment of prodding, Maura lets the tech take pictures of her entire torso. Then, without even being asked, Maura drops her eyes to the ground, and tries to unhook her bra.

 

Jane immediately realizes she can’t do it on her own. Her left arm simply cannot twist behind her back without hurting her ribs, and she can’t do it with just her right. Jane has no idea what to do. She doesn’t want to freak her out or make her feel ashamed, but watching her fail at this basic task is ripping Jane’s heart into tiny stupid pieces.

 

Finally, Maura looks up at her. “I might need some help,” she says simply.

 

Jane immediately walks over to her, snatching the sports bra off the pile of clothes she’s brought up from the locker room. “Hold this?” She offers it to Maura, who takes it with a nod. Jane walks behind her, and asks “Ready?” before unfastening the bra as gently as she can without putting her skin directly on Maura’s.

 

Maura slings it off, drops it in the bag, and quickly puts the sports bra over her front. Jane thanks her lucky stars that she happened to have a sports bra that fastens in the back today, instead of her usual pullover. She quickly fastens it for Maura—although, this time her fingers do graze Maura’s back a few times. Maura flinches a little each time, but says nothing until it’s over. Jane wordlessly leans over the table, grabs the tank top, and hands it to Maura. She slips it on, and then looks over at Jane. “Thank you.”

 

They just nod at each other.

 

The rest isn’t quite as bad. Her legs are a collection of bruises and scrapes, and one knee is swollen, but nothing like the injury to her ribs. And while depositing her underwear in the bag is a humiliation unlike anything she’s ever felt before, at least she can put on the fresh pair herself. Soon she’s dressed in Jane’s best workout attire, looking even smaller and thinner than in her ruined skirt and blouse. She sits back in the chair and the tech takes photos of her feet. Jane can’t even look at her feet but Maura politely asks to see the pictures. She spends a few moments zooming in on specific parts of them before sighing, seemingly in relief, and passing the camera back with a soft word of thanks.

 

And then the evidence is wheeled out, and Maura realizes that she’s free to go.

 

She’s wanted to be free for nine long days. But now she just sits, still and silent and small.

 

“What now?” she asks.

 

* * *

 

“You need to go to the hospital. I can take you, if you need a ride.”

 

“No.”

 

“What, did you want to call someone for a ride?” Jane reaches for her phone again.

 

“I mean, no, I’m not going to the hospital.”

 

“Excuse me?” Jane is incredulous. She’s seen Maura’s feet, and that bruise on her ribs is no joke.

 

“I’m not going to the hospital.”

 

Jane thinks she knows what this about. She tries to use her gentlest voice. “We don’t have to go to Mass General. You don’t have to see anyone you know.”

 

“Jane.” Maura’s voice is very firm. “I’m not going to any hospital. I just want to go home.”

 

“Maura, your feet! That bruise…” Jane gestures hopelessly.

 

“My feet need to be cleaned up and disinfected. I don’t see any injuries that would require anything more than a few butterfly bandages, which can be found in any basic medical kit. If stiches are required, I am more than qualified to do them myself.” Jane blanches, but Maura talks over her. “And the injury on my side is bruised ribs, two of them, I believe, nothing more. There is nothing they can do at the hospital except make me wait for a very painful x-ray that will show no breaks or fractures. There’s nothing they can do for me there.”

 

“You can’t know that.” Jane’s never broken a rib, but she’s been around people who have. It’s hard to tell.

 

Maura raises an eyebrow, and it’s Jane’s first flash of Maura’s actual personality. “You know, I actually went to school for a very long time just for this purpose.”

 

“C’mon, Maura, you need to get checked out.” She’s straight up pleading, but it’s no use.

 

“Absolutely not,” Maura says crisply. Then she softens. “But, I could use a ride home, if it’s not too much trouble.”

 

Jane recognizes a lost cause when she sees one. She nearly laughs – she never thought she’d meet someone more against hospitals that she is herself. She huffs in resignation, mostly for show, and stands up. “Yeah, okay. I’ll drive you home, then.”

 

And then, as Maura stands, Jane has a gut churning realization. She stops dead in her tracks. “Wait. I can’t take you home.”

 

Maura stops and turns, looking back in confusion. “I, um…okay? I can take a cab, I guess.”

 

Jane shakes her head, dismissively. “No, I mean, no, god, I’m not letting you take a cab home, Maura, don’t be insane.” Maura smiles a little. “No, I mean, you can’t go home.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“You told Kylie you live alone with a turtle.”

 

“Tortoise.”

 

“Whatever. Not a person. I can’t let you spend the night in an empty house.”

 

Maura softens. “Jane,” she starts, ready to get her way again.

 

But Jane is just as stubborn as she is. “Absolutely not,” she says crisply. Even Maura has to smile a little. “No, no way.” She thinks for a moment, and then nods. “It’s settled. You’ll come to my place with me.”

 

Maura raises both eyebrows, her turn to be incredulous. “Oh, I will?”

 

Jane nods again, confident. “You will. I mean, I could come to your house with you, but my apartment is literally a fortress. I picked it specifically because there is no way to possibly get in except the front door, and I have very expensive locks. It’s on the third floor, no way up from the outside. Now your house, I’m guessing from the neighborhood, is big, with bushes and a bunch of windows and a back door and stuff, lots of dark corners and big ass closets. It might be hard to feel completely secure there. Mine is Fort Knox.”

 

It takes less than a second for Maura to realize that Jane is very very right. In her own house, she would be convinced, even if she had a hundred Janes with her, that the badman was lurking behind bush, inside every closet, under every bed. She honestly doesn’t know how her house will ever feel safe again.

 

She pushes the panic away and nods resolutely at Jane. “Yes. Yes, I will be coming to your apartment.”

 

* * *

 

On the way out, they stop in a supply room for Maura to gather all the medical supplies she needs to take care of herself. Jane steps out of the closet for a few moments to make a quick phone call, but made sure to check with Maura before leaving her line of sight this time so no one has to freak out.

 

In no time, they’re in Jane’s cruiser, Maura’s bare feet skimming over the grittiness of the passenger floor mat. It’s not even light out yet. “I can’t believe it’s over,” she says softly, looking out her window.

 

Jane looks over at her, catching Maura’s reflection in the window. “You’re safe now,” she says again.

 

Maura doesn’t turn but nods a little, absently.

 

“She’s safe now,” Jane tries.

 

Maura looks over at her. A real smile graces her face, just for moment, completely transforming her. “She is, isn’t she?”

 

“She is.”

 

Maura turns back to the window, still smiling softly. “She’s safe now,” she whispers to the night. Jane’s knuckles tighten on the wheel. 

 

* * *

  

“There isn’t an elevator – it’s two flights. I guess I could carry you, if you need…” Jane looks up at the stairwell, concerned.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Maura says softly. “I can make it.”

 

She’s actually in better shape that Jane would have guessed. She climbs the stairs slowly but surely, making it to the top without losing her breath or holding her side. She must have been in great shape before being taken, Jane realizes, to have survived that run tonight and still be able to walk at all.

 

Jane leads her over to a door with two big bags in front of it. She scoops them both up, unlocks the door, and walks in. After Maura crosses the threshold, Jane sets the bags down, locks all of the complicated locks, then unholsters her gun and quickly and methodically clears the entire apartment. Maura watches in astonishment as she opens every closet, checks behind every door, and even, from the sound of it, checks behind the shower curtain. She comes back a moment later, holstering her gun and looking relaxed. “All clear,” she says cheerfully.

 

“Do you do that every time you come home?” She tries and fails not to sound flabbergasted.

 

“Yup.” Jane says it like it’s not a big deal, checking your house for murderers every time you enter it.

 

Maura has a million more questions, but swallows them back. She just watches as Jane takes off her badge and gun, puts them in a drawer in the living room, kicks off her boots, and grabs both bags, putting them on the kitchen table.

 

“So,” she says, looking over at Maura. “Food first or shower first?”

 

* * *

 

It is absolutely, one hundred percent shower first. Jane pulls a toothbrush, floss, and a comb out of one of the bags. They’re all cheap but brand new. She hands them over and Maura takes them wordlessly, wondering how in the world Jane managed to have fresh toiletries delivered to her front door before five in the morning. Jane leads her to the bathroom, hands her a clean towel, and introduces her to finicky temperature controls. She promises to leave fresh clothes on the bed, and then hesitates.

 

“Do you—I mean, are you…” She looks pained.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Will you be scared in there alone?” She looks like she regrets having to ask it, like Maura might be offended. But Maura genuinely considers it.

 

“Could we, maybe, leave the door open? So I can hear you walking around?”

 

Jane’s face lights up in a smile. “You got it.”

 

* * *

 

Maura takes maybe the longest shower of her life. Her particular combination of physical grime and emotional filth peels off slowly. She cries a little and scrubs every part of her that isn’t battered or bleeding as hard as she can. She understands why people cut off all their hair after trauma – the idea of any particle of her having any particle of him on it sends her reaching for the soap again and again.

 

Finally she thinks she just physically can’t stand up anymore. She gets out, dries off, and quickly dresses in the clothes Jane has left for her. It’s a loose tank top, soft sweatpants, and an even softer zip up sweatshirt. They’re the kind of clothes she doesn’t really own. They’re perfect.

 

She walks out into the living room and sees Jane setting out what looks like Thai takeout on the table. Jane looks over at her and smiles. “Hey, Dr. Loungewear.”

 

Maura smiles back, self-consciously. “Hey.”

 

“Ready to eat?”

 

Maura is literally starving, but her training won’t let her eat just yet. “Almost. First, could you give me a hand with something?”

 

She gathers up the medical supplies and they both go into the bathroom. Maura takes off the sweatshirt and pulls up the tank top until her entire bruise is exposed. She looks at it critically in the mirror, poking it all around. Jane has no idea what she’s looking for, but Maura seems satisfied. “Ribs 8 and 9,” she says with a nod. “Good.” She grabs the ace bandage. “Can you help me with this?”

 

Jane’s always been very bad with ace bandages. Whenever she’s sprained or twisted something her bandaging job always looks like it’s been done by a blind and impatient eight year old. Maura’s is meticulous. Jane’s job is just to hold the end in place against Maura’s skin for the first few wraps, something she does with great self-consciousness. There is something about being away from the harsh industrial lights and security cameras of the interrogation room that make this feel a lot more intimate than when she’d undone Maura’s bra earlier. But soon it’s over. Maura clips the end of the bandage to itself, and takes an experimental deep breath. She nods in satisfaction, and then sits on the edge of the tub to make quick work of her feet.

 

Jane hands her things as she needs them, feeling a little bit like a nurse in the OR, but queasier. She’s impressed by Maura’s quickness. The shower got off most of the caked blood and dirt, and in very little time, Maura has cleaned and disinfected every inch of both feet. She carefully applies butterfly bandages to specific cuts, and covers certain parts with small gauze pads. In less time than Jane could have believed, she’s done.

 

Jane holds out a hand to help her stand up. “Good as new?” She says it sort of as a joke, and the second it’s left her mouth she’s filled with a million regrets. Of course Maura isn’t good as new.

 

But Maura just gives her a small smile. She cocks her head to the side and leaves her hand in Jane’s. “Better than before,” she says softly.

 

They look deep into each other’s eyes and each nods, just a little.


	5. Chapter 5

They walk quietly back into the living room. Jane heads over to the table and Maura realizes that the second bag waiting in front of the door was take-out. Thai, from what she can smell. Jane busies herself with taking the lids off all the different cartons. When she’s finished, she looks over at Maura, worry and hope in her eyes. “I, uh, hope Thai is okay. It was the only thing I could get at this hour. But I have like, peanut butter and stuff if you want something else.”

 

Maura shakes her head. “Thai is good. Thank you for doing this.”

 

Jane scratches the back of her neck, a little awkwardly. “Oh, yeah, no problem. Um, okay, so nothing is spicy cause I didn’t know what you’d like. And I didn’t know if you eat meat so those three are vegetarian.”

 

Maura finds the idea of turning down any type of food to be completely absurd, but she recognizes the sweetness of the gesture. “It’s perfect, Jane. Thank you.”

 

Jane heaps her plate with food. She hasn’t eaten an actual meal in twelve days, not real one at a table with silverware. She tries to remember if she’s sat down for even a single meal since Kylie was taken, rather than standing or walking or running while chewing. The first bite is halfway to her mouth before she realizes that Maura hasn’t put anything on her plate yet. She’s just standing there, staring down at the food.

 

“You okay?”

 

Maura’s head snaps up. “Yes, sorry. I was just…this is so much food,” she says weakly.

 

Jane shrugs. “Yeah, I’m a chronic over-orderer. But leftovers are always good, right.” She puts the bite in her mouth and, a few long seconds later, nearly smacks herself as she realizes. “Oh, shit!”

 

Maura looks appalled at the amount of food she can see inside Jane’s mouth. Jane hurriedly chews and swallows. Maura monitors her carefully to make sure she doesn’t need to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

 

“Shit, Maura, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even ask. Were you – I – did you, could, like, eat, in there?” Jane’s eyes are huge and concerned.

 

It was rambling but Maura understands the question being asked. “Yes, I ate. But not…enough,” Maura says cautiously.

 

Jane looks furious with herself. “Dammit, Maura, I knew we needed to go to the hospital!”

 

“No!” Jane makes eye contact at the firmness in Maura’s voice. “I’m alright, Jane. I don’t need to go the hospital. I just need to eat slowly, that’s all.”

 

Jane hesitates. She knows what it’s like to hate the hospital, but she knows what it’s like to miss out on a fast recovery because of that hate. “Are you sure?” She asks it slowly, trying to read Maura.

 

“I’m sure.” She puts a dainty amount of a couple of the dishes on her plate and sits down. Jane watches as she takes a small sip of a water and then a tiny bite. She slowly and methodically works her way through the glass and through about half of the food on her plate. Jane is completely in awe of her discipline.

 

After about five minutes, Maura seems to have eaten all she can hold. Neither of them mentions that Jane has eaten roughly four times as much as Maura. Jane gets up and refills Maura’s water before returning to her chair. Maura takes the full glass from her with a smile of thanks and then holds it with both hands, taking occasional soft sips.

 

“Is Kylie malnourished too?”

 

Maura shakes her head. “No – although neither of us is malnourished, actually. I’m probably undernourished, a lack of enough calories to function in a healthy way. Malnourished is a lack of essential vitamins – you can be malnourished without being undernourished.”

 

Jane interrupts “Is that why there were fat pirates with no teeth?”

 

Maura thinks for a second, then the corner of her mouth tugs up. “Yes, from scurvy – malnourished in terms of vitamins but quite fat. But, in answer to your question, no, Kylie is neither malnourished nor undernourished. She was quite hungry when I arrived, so I don’t know what he fed her before he took me, but afterwards she got nearly as much as she needed.”

 

Jane stares hard at Maura for a long while and something else small clicks into place. “You gave her your food, didn’t you?”

 

Maura shrugs. “She needed it more than I did.”

 

Jane raises her eyebrows. “So you ran six miles, in the middle of the night, barefoot, carrying a toddler, while you were dangerously undernourished?”

 

Maura smiles wryly. “Yes, but you got Thai food and toiletries delivered to your door at 4:30am. So we’re both pretty exceptional, I should say.”

  
Jane lets out a bark of surprised laughter that genuinely scares Maura for a second, before she smiles shyly at Jane.

 

“Oh my god, I wasn’t expecting that.”

 

Maura just sips her water, pleased with herself. “But really. How did you do it?”

 

Jane laughs again. “The restaurant is just a couple blocks away. They’re open late, ‘til like 1 or something, but the family who owns it and I go way back, and a couple of them are real night owls and are always up. We have a deal that when it’s an emergency I can order something at any hour of the night and I pay double and they bring it over. This time I just asked them to pick up some things at the pharmacy next door on their way over.”

 

“Exceptional.”

 

Jane just grins.

 

* * *

 

Jane walks Maura back into the bedroom. “I’m sure you’d like to get some sleep. I’ll be out on the couch.” Maura looks like she’s about to protest, but Jane holds up a hand to stop her. “Don’t even, okay? You deserve a bed, I’m fine on the couch, and that way I’m between you and the door, okay? I swear to you, there is no way into this room that isn’t through me. I promise, you’ll be safe in here.”

 

Maura looks at her intently for a moment, and then nods, dropping her gaze down to the floor. She’s ashamed to still be afraid.

 

“It’s okay to be scared.” Jane says it so quietly it’s almost a whisper. “But you need to try and sleep, okay?”

 

Maura nods again, balling up the hem of the tank top she’s wearing in her suddenly sweaty palms.

 

“When you need to get up, if you get hungry or freaked out, or anything, just wake me up, okay?”

 

Maura looks up at her then. “No, Jane, I can take care of myself.”

 

“Maura.” Jane looks at her very seriously. “I’m being serious. This isn’t about taking care of you; this is about me. I’m on like a hair trigger right now – I have been for twelve days. If I hear someone sneaking around the apartment while I’m sleeping I will freak out and shoot you, okay? So, just like, wake me up and then you can do whatever you need to do and we won’t have to make that trip to the hospital after all, okay? Promise me.”

 

Maura nods again. This seems logical. “I’ll probably be hungry again in a few hours,” she says apologetically, “and I think it will be a good idea to eat as much as I can in these next few days.”

 

“Okay. Then I’ll see you in a couple hours.” Jane smiles at her and Maura does her best to return it.

 

* * *

 

She expected the nightmares, so when she wakes up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, mouth dry, she’s not surprised. But that doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

 

For long minutes, even after she knows she’s awake, Maura just drowns in her abject terror. She sits up, curls in on herself, and tries to will it away. She does everything she can think of to keep her brain afloat, to calm the flashbacks and clear her vision of the basement and the belt and the smell of his breath on her face and the feel of his hands on her body.

 

After what feels like an hour, Maura finally regains enough control to climb stiffly out of the bed. Her ribs and feet scream at her, and she quickly does the math and decides that after she eats once more she’ll be able to take a painkiller. At this thought, her stomach grumbles loudly, and she reluctantly crosses over to the door, terror still ringing in her ears.

 

She carefully pulls the door open, unused to this freedom of movement, to being able to open doors whenever she wants to. She starts to creep into the kitchen, and then remembers her promise to Jane. She’s reluctant to wake her; the bags under Jane’s eyes indicated that she needs more than the few hours of sleep Maura has allowed her. But she’s really not interested in getting shot and she’s pretty sure Jane was serious about that warning. So she forces herself not to tip toe as she makes her way into the kitchen. She stops near the table, Jane’s body hidden by the back of the couch. “Jane?” She starts softly, not wanting to scare her, but after a few moments she has to try again. “Jane? Uh, Jane??”

 

Jane sits bolt upright, hair everywhere, desperately looking around. Maura almost laughs.

 

“Sorry, Jane, it’s just me. I’m just getting some food. You can go back to sleep.”

 

Jane grunts and drops out of sight. Maura smiles to herself and turns away to get the food out of the fridge.

 

She screams and throws herself dramatically backwards the second she feels someone looming behind her.

 

Black spots jump in front of her as she clutches her chest and tries to make sense of the fact that Jane is standing not six inches from her.

 

“Holy shit, Maura, I’m so sorry! Oh my god, I thought you heard me.” Jane moves closer, totally freaking out. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you okay?” She reaches out and touches Maura’s shoulder. “Maura, are you okay?”

 

Maura tries to nod but can’t. The terror from her nightmare is still there, grabbing her, pulling her back into the basement. She shakes her head in horror, clutching at herself, trying to keep herself whole.

 

Jane does the only thing she’d never been able to ask anyone to do for her, when she was hurting this much. She leans in, grabs Maura, and pulls her into a full body hug.

 

* * *

 

It’s a risky move. Jane waits for Maura to scream again, to rip herself away, to push Jane away. At the first sign that this isn’t helping, Jane will hop back onto the couch and give Maura all the space she needs.

 

But Maura isn’t screaming or ripping or pushing. In fact, she seems be breathing a little deeper. After a few long moments, her body stops shaking so badly. A few more, and she exhales loudly and drops her head onto Jane’s shoulder, leaning her whole body in.

 

Jane swallows hard, feeling even more responsible for this broken person than she had ten minutes ago. She gently starts rubbing Maura’s back, the ace bandage under her hand reminding her to be gentle on every rotation. She doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t know what to say. It isn’t okay, it might never be okay. So she just rubs Maura’s back and reaches her other hand up to cup Maura’s head gently, softly swaying back and forth.

 

* * *

 

Maura lets Jane hold her for a long time. She doesn’t want to stop feeling that safe, that protected, that rooted in a place where terror is not welcome. But eventually the pain in her feet overwhelms her, and she gently starts to pull away.

 

Jane lets go of her quickly, trying not to seem controlling. As soon as they’re physically disconnected, both are immediately flooded with contrition. Maura’s humiliated at her weakness, Jane at touching Maura like that without permission.

  
They both sort of look at the floor for a while and wish they could sink into it, until, blessedly, Jane remembers something. “You were hungry, right? Lemme get the food out.”

 

Maura nods, slowly. She’s trying to come back from her surprise at how much she liked the hug, how much she’s missing it now, and how embarrassed she is about both those things. She hobbles over to the table and sits down as Jane brings her over a couple containers. When Jane sits, Maura looks up at her. “You don’t have to just sit here and watch me eat, Jane. You can go back to sleep.”

 

Jane looks over at her like she’s the biggest idiot in the world. “Tell me about your nightmare.”

 

“What?”

 

“Was it a flashback or like a surreal hellscape?”

 

Maura looks up at Jane, her eyes bursting with questions. “Both,” she says slowly, narrowed eyes not leaving Jane’s. “One and then the other. How did you – ?”

 

Jane takes a deep breath and decides to lay her entire self out on the table for Maura to dissect. “Those were the two types of nightmares I had after mine.”

 

Maura blinks at her, a few times. “Were – you were…?”

 

Jane takes her hands out of her pockets and places them, almost in slow motion, one after the other, facedown on the table in front of Maura. Maura takes a sharp breath as she sees the scars. She runs one of her fingers softly over the raised tissue on Jane’s right hand. She looks up at Jane for permission and, at her small nod, reaches out and picks up her hand. She bites her lip when she sees the companion mark on Jane’s palm.

 

For a few minutes she just holds Jane’s hand in both her own, gently examining the damage. Jane is surprised that, for the first time, she doesn’t feel like a specimen.

 

Maura finally puts her hand back on the table, but doesn’t pull her own hand completely away. She leaves the tips of her fingers softly overlapping with Jane’s. “Was it a scalpel?” She asks it softly, and she already knows the answer.

 

Jane nods, unsurprised that Maura figured it out. If anyone would know what big scalpel marks looked like, it would be a medical examiner.

 

“About two years ago?” Jane nods again. “From the angle…you were pinned to something?”

 

“The floor.” Jane’s voice is hoarse.

 

“Jesus,” Maura breathes.

 

Jane nods, swallowing heavily. It’s a sunny morning; Jane’s neighbors are going about their days, honking and calling to each other in the street. The sounds and smells of normalcy drift up into the apartment where the two broken women stare at each other. Laying their bare selves out on the table to be dissected.

 

“How long?”

 

“Seven hours.”

 

“With the scalpels…the whole time?”

 

“Um, most of it, yeah. He knocked me out when I first got there, but as soon as I came to, he did it.”

 

“Did he…” Maura can’t seem to say the word.

 

“No. But he would have, I think, later.”

 

“Jesus.” Maura’s hand twitches over Jane’s.

 

“How did you escape? With these injuries, I can’t even imagine.”

 

Jane blinks a couple times, then takes a deep breath. “I didn’t. I didn’t get myself out like you did. My partner found me. Shot the guy, called an ambulance.”

 

Maura’s hand slides all the way over Jane’s. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She says it quietly and firmly, like it’s a fact. Jane tries to believe her. But she just shrugs.

 

“Why you?”

 

“He was a serial that we were after. Killed couples. Raped the wife, made the husband watch.” Maura flinches at the word and Jane squeezes her hand in apology. “He’d kill the husband and then keep the wife around for a few days. He made a fresh kill and I had a lead on where the wife was. So I went in, without backup, and he got the jump on me. I think he wanted me to come. He’d become, um – fixated, is the word they used – fixated on me.”

 

Maura shudders a little bit. “What happened to her?”

 

Jane looks down at the table. “We got her out. But she committed suicide a few days later. It was too much.”

 

“It’s not your fault.” She says it quietly and firmly, like it’s a fact. Jane tries even harder to believe her.

 

She asks her last question as the sunlight hits the kitchen table. “Is he dead?”

 

“No, in jail. I wish he were dead.”

 

Maura looks back into her eyes intensely. Then, softly, she says it. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

Maura is torn between exhaustion and fear. She wants, desperately, to sleep for days and days and wake up feeling less empty. But she’s afraid to be alone, to close her eyes, of the dark, of sounds, of her own mind, of not being able to check on Kylie, of monsters, of him.

 

“Maura, you need to sleep some more.”

 

Maura looks over at Jane and shakes her head, tears coming to her eyes. “I know,” she says. Her voice is heavy, weary, frustrated. “I just – can’t.” She’s standing in the bathroom swallowing a hearty dose of ibuprofen.

 

Jane crosses her arms and leans against the hallway wall for a moment. She chews on her lip, thinking, then raises her eyes to Maura’s, doubt visible from across the doorway. “Do you want me to sleep in there with you?”

 

Maura blinks, several times, silent and surprised.

 

“It’s no big deal if not, but I just thought, you seemed less scared after we hugged, so I thought maybe, some like, contact would help? But, no pressure, you can just forget it.”

 

Maura only thinks for a second before she does something she never does. She blurts out exactly what she wants. “Yes. Please.”

 

* * *

 

They get in the bed. It’s quiet and awkward, but Maura is honestly relieved that she has something to worry about that isn’t life or death, that scares her in a way that lets her keep her mind in tact. Jane had been picturing spooning, but Maura lays down facing her, and Jane really doesn’t picture this morning as a Maura-as-big-spoon type of morning. Jane decides to make the best of it, and reaches out and tucks some hair behind Maura’s ear. “Is this okay?”

 

Maura nods, softly. She closes her eyes and Jane guesses they’ll just sleep like that, not touching but facing each other and super close. It’s weird, but whatever helps Maura will work.

 

After a few moments of Jane holding herself stiffly, so not to accidentally roll into Maura, Maura hisses a little bit. Jane opens her eyes and sees Maura wincing slightly. Jane quickly props herself up on her elbow. “Hey, what is it?”

 

“Just my ribs. I forgot – I need to sleep on my other side.”

 

“Oh, okay. Do you need me to rewrap them or something?”

 

“No, thank you. They’re fine.”

 

Maura gingerly turns herself over so her back is facing Jane. Jane lowers herself back down and watches Maura’s back, waiting for her muscles to relax. But they don’t.

 

After a few more minutes, Jane takes another risk.

 

“After what happened to me, I pushed everyone away. My partner, my family, my friends. I spent a lot of time alone. Nights were always the worst.” She can tell Maura’s listening, even though she doesn’t turn. “I tried to be so independent, show that I was tough. But I just – you can never tell anyone this, by the way – but there were times I would have killed to have someone who would just hold onto me while I slept and keep me safe.” The silence is heavy. They’re both waiting for Jane to say it.

 

Finally she does. “Can I do that for you?”

 

Maura lets out a loud breath, then says in her smallest, quietest voice, “Yes, please.”

 

Jane scoots closer, wrapping her body around Maura’s as gently as she possibly can. She hovers her arm over Maura’s waist. “How…how do I not hurt you here?”

 

Maura looks over, then takes Jane’s hand in hers and positions her arm so that it crosses her body down by her hip and comes to rest on her stomach, just below her right breast. Jane expects Maura to let go of her hand, but she doesn’t. She dips her fingers in with Jane’s and holds on for dear life.

 

They lay there for a moment, both relaxing into this.

 

“Sweet dreams, Maura.” Jane’s voice is hoarse and soft. But Maura’s already asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

They sleep for hours. Maura whimpers and curls in on herself a couple of times, but never fully wakes up. Each time Jane just holds her closer and whispers in her ear that she’s safe, and each time it seems to help. Jane chooses not to think about why this is working so well on this person she’s known for less than twelve hours, focusing instead on smoothing out the wrinkles on her guest’s forehead before sinking back into her own soft sleep.

 

Of course, it’s her mother who ruins it.

 

Jane’s phone rings shrilly from the living room, piping out a tiny version of literally the most absurd song possible in this situation. Jane is torn between wanting to leap out of bed and shutting it off before it can wake Maura, and not startling her with any sudden moves. She compromises by trying to quickly ooze out of the bed toward the phone, which of course means that Maura ends up both startled and awake.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Jane hisses as she stumbles out the bedroom door. “Sorry!”

 

“It’s – “ Maura’s voice is weak and tired. She rubs a hand over her face, trying to grasp what’s happening. “It’s fine – I just – sorry, is that _Yellow Submarine_?”

 

Jane walks back in the room, holding her phone that is still obnoxiously chirping away. She rolls her eyes in disgust. “Yes. My… _mother_ …chose it.” They way she says _mother_ is so long-suffering and exasperated that Maura has to smile. “She insists that I liked the song when I was a kid. I have no memory of it, but every time I change the ringtone she goes like, nuts.” Jane then slips into what Maura assumes is an impression of her mother, pitching her voice higher and adopting a much stronger Boston accent. “ _Oh, Janie, I chose that song just for you, so when I call you’ll have good memories of me! I heard on the tv that having good memories is so important! Don’t you want to remember me during the day_?” Jane flops dramatically back on the bed, throwing an arm over her eyes. “Like I don’t see her ten times a day as it is.”

 

Maura is smiling, reveling in the experience of normalcy. Even before she was taken, the idea of waking up in bed with someone who promptly complains about an overbearing mother’s ringtone – this has never been part of her normal. She finds that she likes it.

 

“Jesus, I have like 45 texts from her too.” Jane looks up from her griping to actually look at Maura for the first time. “What are you grinning about?”

 

Maura quickly tries to rearrange her face into a more neutral expression. “I – nothing.” It’s true, now that she’s stopped grinning.

 

“Well, sorry for the weird wake-up call. Rizzoli’s aren’t really known for their subtlety.”

 

“I didn’t mind it.”

 

Jane raises an eyebrow. “That makes one of us.”

 

“Are you going to call her back?”

 

“In a couple minutes. I need to call into work. Get some updates. It’s a little after 3pm, so if they need me to come in today I’ll need to do that pretty soon.”

 

Maura suddenly feels like an idiot. She hadn’t considered what would happen when the “night” was over. She doesn’t have any plans for how to survive and breathe regularly when she’s more than four feet away from Jane. She doesn’t know how to go home. She doesn’t want to go home. But pretty soon Jane is going to go into work and she’ll be alone.

 

Jane is still waking up, so she’s oblivious. “Mind if I make the call from here?”

 

Maura shakes her head silently. Jane nods and dials, and is soon holding for Frost.

 

Maura arranges her pillow behind her back, sitting up fully and leaning against the headboard. She has a flash of how domestic this is – the two of them in sweats starting the day in bed together. It hurts, how much she likes it, but she can’t stop herself from leaning into it and soaking it up while she can. She smoothes the sheets over her lap as she mindlessly listens to Jane, letting her head gently fall back to rest on the headboard.

 

Jane leans back too, shifting on the bed and ending up closer to Maura than she meant to. Maura’s body rolls a little into her, and she turns her head to look over. She’s a bit surprised to see Jane’s face so close to her own, but she doesn’t pull back. Jane doesn’t want to move away in case that makes Maura feel rejected, so she just gives her a small smile while Frost is talking.

 

Maura isn’t sure how it happens, but somehow her head drops down onto Jane’s shoulder.

 

Jane freezes for a moment, and Maura panics. She immediately weighs the likelihood of developing hives if she lies and says she urgently needs to use the bathroom or eat something, but before she can choose an appropriate course of action, Jane saves her. Again.

 

“Hey, Frost, hold on a sec.” She pulls the phone away from her ear and turns to Maura. “Hey, sit up for a second?” Maura gingerly pushes herself up, too embarrassed to do anything other than what she’s told. Jane pulls herself up so she’s sitting up properly, raising herself a couple inches. She pulls her arm away from her body and raises her eyebrows. Maura understands only when she says, “Okay, come back.”

 

She very carefully tucks herself into Jane’s body, resting her head on Jane’s chest and feeling Jane’s arm come around her, soft and strong. “Okay?” Jane asks it softly and Maura can only nod, completely overcome.

 

Jane goes back to her call, and Maura’s eyes slip closed as Jane’s fingers start drawing mindless patterns on her arm.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Maur?”

 

Maura groggily opens her eyes. Her neck is a little sore, and her face feels oddly warm. She’s disoriented – she hadn’t realized that she’d fallen back asleep. She makes what, in retrospect, she’s sure is completely incoherent and unattractive sound.

 

She feels, more than hears, Jane’s throaty chuckle. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

Maura pushes herself up, self-conscious again at how she was lying all over Jane. She’s suddenly desperately afraid she drooled on Jane’s chest, but she’s too paranoid to wipe her face and check. After a few too many beats, she remembers that Jane had said something. “Oh, it’s…no, fine.”

 

Jane smiles, confused but polite. “Uh, I just got off with Frost – he says I don’t need to come in today, but that they’ll want you in tomorrow for another interview.”

 

Maura nods. She should have been expecting that.

 

“He said to bring a lawyer, cause they’ll be collecting testimony that will serve in the court case. I’m guessing you have a lawyer or something, but I could try to hook you up, if you need…”

 

Maura shakes her head. “That won’t be necessary, thank you. I know who I’ll call.” She should be thinking about the lawyer, but her mind is still eighty percent occupied with the question of whether or not that’s really a damp spot on Jane’s chest, direct from her sleeping mouth.

 

“Okay, good. Um, so I was thinking that we could go try to find your car? I’m guessing it was impounded after you were reported missing, unless the Whole Foods towed it or something?”

 

Maura flips her wrist up, instinctively looking at a watch that isn’t there. That hasn’t been there in ten days. She puts her arm back down quickly, flushing. Jane catches it. She doesn’t say anything about the blush or the watch. She just softly tells Maura that it’s 3:45.

 

Maura doesn’t look up. She gently fingers her wrist, tears starting to come despite how hard she is pressing them back. After a few tough moments, she can feel Jane’s silent question. “It…it was a gift. From my father.” She says it quietly, ashamed. “My parents, they don’t…approve…of my life. But when I graduated from medical school…” She swallows. “It was gift,” she finishes, even quieter than before.

 

Jane’s voice is just as soft. “We’ll try to get it back, okay?”

 

Maura nods a little, not looking up.

 

Jane feels her heart crack open, and she reaches out to take Maura’s hand in hers. But before she can reach it, _Yellow Submarine_ once again absurdly and infuriatingly shrieks through the air.

 

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” It’s somewhere between a scream and a moan and it makes Maura smile.

 

“Ma! What!” Jane sounds like a petulant child and Maura is left marveling at how quickly Jane can shift from detective to friend to solace to angsty teen. While Jane is distracted, Maura surreptitiously wipes her mouth, checking for drool. She doesn’t find any, but it is scientifically impossible to prove that something doesn’t exist, so she isn’t off the hook yet.

 

For a minute or two Jane seems to be barely listening, throwing in an occasional “no” and “I _know_ ,” but then her tone changes. “Wait, what do you mean?” After a few moments, “Ma, slow down. Where are you now? What do you…No, I don’t…No, Ma, I can’t, I’m – okay, Jesus. Okay, lemme… _okay, Ma_ , lemme find out, okay? I’ll call you back…No, yes, I will. _Okay_! Jesus, bye.”

 

Maura blinks rapidly. Usually she’s quite good at guessing what is happening on the other end of a phone call but this one leaves her completely baffled.

 

Jane throws the phone down on the bed, and is met by Maura’s one raised eyebrow. “My mother,” she offers.

 

Maura blinks again. “I followed that part, actually.”

 

Jane grimaces. “She’s not great with personal space.”

 

Maura is immediately overcome by how closely they’re sitting in the bed, and how she has pretty much refused to let go of Jane for the past number of hours. She flushes again, and vows to control herself. She sort of tunes Jane out as she struggles to get herself under control, checking her face one more time for any embarrassing sleep fluids. She only snaps back to the conversation when she hears the most important word in the world.

 

Her head snaps up. “What about Kylie?”

 

Jane looks over, quizzical. “Did you hear anything I said, except for _Kylie_?”

 

Maura falters. “Not…really.”

 

Jane grins. She knows what that’s like. “I was saying that Ma wants me to come over and see Kylie. I guess my Ma’s at Tommy’s house and Kylie isn’t doing so great.”

 

Maura is immediately concerned, speaking more urgently than she has since leaving the station. “What’s wrong? Is she okay? What’s going on? Can I – oh.” She stops herself, immediately fighting back tears, choking back the knowledge that she can’t. That Kylie isn’t hers.

 

Jane notices. “I don’t know exactly what’s wrong. My Ma said it isn’t urgent, but she’d like me to come before they try to put her to bed.”

 

Maura nods, unable to hide her devastation at not being the one to put Kylie to bed anymore.

 

“Maur?”

 

She looks up, fighting to keep her face neutral and failing miserably.

 

“I think you should come with me.”

 

* * *

 

After another quick meal of Thai food, Jane and Maura leave the apartment and head back to Jane’s car. They’ve decided to deal with Maura’s car later in favor of stopping by Maura’s house to get her some clothes of her own (and **_shoes_** ) before going to see Kylie.

 

Maura softly directs Jane to her home, and before she’s quite ready, they’re pulling up in her driveway, Jane whistling softly in appreciation. The house is just as she’d expected. Huge. Pretty. Expensive as all hell.

 

Maura looks around with a critical eye. There aren’t any newspapers on her stoop, which surprises her. Maybe they stop your mail when you’re reported missing? Before she can turn fully around to ask Jane, who is still gawking a couple of feet behind her, a booming voice from her left startles the living daylights out of her. “Dr. Isles!”

 

She squeaks and hops backward, colliding with Jane who neatly catches her and sets her back on her feet. “You okay?” Jane asks hurriedly.

 

She nods, blinking rapidly, and turns to face the voice that, now her heart has stopped trying to escape her body, she recognizes as coming from her next door neighbor, standing right on the edge of where her property meets his. She walks toward him, sending a thousand silent thanks to Jane as she follows her over to the left.

 

“Dr. Barnes, hello.” Maura holds her head up, willing him to ignore her bare feet and clearly slept-in borrowed sweats. “How are you?”

 

Jane’s jaw hits the manicured grass. How is he? She was fucking kidnapped! Missing for a week and half! How the fuck is he?

 

And it just gets worse.

 

“I’m doing quite well. We’re just packing up to head to the Vineyard. We’ll be meeting the boys there, you know. Should have some great weather at the club.” His voice is superior and supercilious and Jane definitely hates him.

 

“That sounds lovely.” Maura’s voice is different too, and Jane can’t quite put her finger on why but she’s definitely not a fan.

 

“You know, Dr. Isles, you should really call and have the newspaper held for you next time you go on vacation.” Now he’s slipped from patronizing to downright offensive. Jane is ready to slap him in cuffs and send him to the dirtiest holding cell in Dorchester. Fucking VACATION? She must have actually twitched or made a move forward, because, through the small part of her vision that isn’t clouded with red, she sees Maura subtly hold up a hand to stop her.

 

She’s cocked her head to the side, and she says, a light dose of confusion apparent in her voice, “Vacation?”

 

“Yes, my dear.” His voice is absolutely dripping with patronization now. “The missus has been collecting your paper for the last week! Didn’t want any of the neighborhood vagabonds knowing the house was empty and breaking in. You should be more careful next time.”

 

It clicks for Jane that this pompous windbag doesn’t know what happened to Maura. That he didn’t once think to question why he hadn’t seen his neighbor for a week, why this normally responsible person hadn’t made arrangements for her mail and newspaper. Why he hadn’t seen her car. He hadn’t seen the cops who must have come by when she was reported missing or the reports that must have been on the news. _What. A. Dick._

What really makes her grit her teeth, though, is Maura’s response. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry to be such a nuisance. Please, do thank Cynthia for me. I’ll bring something over to apologize. I was gone a bit unexpectedly, and it completely slipped my mind. My sincerest apologies.”

 

It seems really over the top to Jane, all the lady did was walk five extra feet to pick up an extra newspaper. But it seems like Maura’s groveling is only scraping the bottom of the bucket for him. He nods in acknowledgement, but manages to make it seem like he’s doing her a favor by accepting her apology.

 

After another few minutes of Maura nearly simpering at him as he drones on about his house in the Vineyard, he blissfully goes back into his house, leaving them alone on the lawn.

 

“What a dick.” Jane whispers it just loudly enough for Maura to hear.

 

Maura looks over and raises that eyebrow again. Jane is worried for a minute that she overstepped – that maybe now that they’re back in Rich People Land, suddenly Maura expects and appreciates that level of dickishness. But then Maura dismissively shakes her head in the direction of his house, rolling her eyes and letting out a breath that’s almost a laugh.

 

“Is he always like that?”

 

Maura nods as she picks her way around to the other side of her house. “Always. His wife is perfectly pleasant, but he’s always…” she pauses, considering her words carefully, “a bit condescending.”

 

Jane snorts at the understatement, and Maura smiles, a real genuine smile. Maura starts digging in the bushes on the side of her house, and emerges a few seconds later with a key in her hand.

 

“Not safe, Maur.”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Maura says over her shoulder as she returns to the front door. “Would you rather we break down the door? Or maybe,” her smile turns wicked, “that I’d left this key with Dr. Barnes, and we were currently making small talk in his formal living room while he and his wife, completely out of obligation, forced us to tell them all about our _vacation_ and hear more about Vineyard?”

 

Jane shudders, actually physically shudders. Maura laughs, turns the key, and enters her house.

 

It doesn’t smell as musty as she expects, and Maura realizes that Sofia, the woman who comes and cleans, was there just a few days ago. She can’t quite wrap her mind around the notion that while she was desperately fighting to keep an explosive belt off a three-year-old, the rest of the world was so normal that Sofia was cleaning her floors and dusting behind her television.

 

But thinking of Sofia helps allay a serious fear she’d had. Leaving Jane to close the door, Maura softly pads through the house, making soft “pishhh pishhh” sounds.

 

Jane creeps after her. “What are you doing?” She hisses, nearly crouching down, trying to follow Maura’s stealthy lead.

 

“Looking for Bass.”

 

“What’s bass?”

 

Maura leads her in and out of the largest kitchen Jane has ever seen and into the doorway of what looks like a laundry room. She stops abruptly and Jane nearly careens into her, stopping just short of re-bruising Maura’s ribs as she flails around to keep her balance. But Maura doesn’t even notice. She’s scooted forward and is bending down, patting the biggest and ugliest looking decoration Jane has ever seen.

 

“Oh, hi, sweetie. Hi Bass. I’m so glad Sofia was here to feed you and check your lamp.” She’s using a tender little voice, not the same one she used with Kylie but certainly different from her normal voice. Suddenly the decoration moves and Jane nearly leaps back with surprise.

 

“What is _that_!”

 

Maura turns her head to chastise Jane, not bothering to stand up. “Shh! You’ll scare him.”

 

“ _He’s_ …alive?”

 

“His name is Bass. He’s a geochelone sulcata. An African spurred tortoise. I’ve had him since he was like this big.” She holds her fingers out in an impossibly small circle, her face adoring and open and sweet. It does something to Jane that she can’t quite figure out, but really makes her want to hug Maura again.

 

Instead she settles for a joke. “What’s his name? Barnes? Named after your cool neighbor?”

 

Maura laughs and Jane tries to keep it together. “Not quite.” She pats his shell, lovingly. He doesn’t seem to respond. “Bass. For William M. Bass. The forensic anthropologist who founded the famous body farm.”

 

Jane leans on the counter, trying to be casual. “Right, yeah. That Bass. What a…happy namesake.”

 

Maura gives him a final pat and stands. She twists her hands a little, and Jane realizes that this last joke wasn’t funny.

 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

 

“No, it’s – it’s alright. It’s true. Up until now, most of my interests were around relatively morbid topics. It will be…” she pauses and searches for the word, “interesting, to reacclimate to that.”

 

Jane scratches the back of neck and tries to think of something to make it better. “Well, I’m sure Bass will be very helpful with that reacclimation process.”

 

It works, at least enough. Maura laughs a little and moves past Jane into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

 

Jane immediately snaps to attention. She hasn’t had coffee _all day_. “Oh god, yes.” It comes out a little more like a moan than she’d expected, and she quickly flushes. _Bad, Jane. Mind out of the gutter_.

 

Maura blissfully hasn’t seemed to notice. She quickly sets up the machine, marveling at how her body remembers how to complete this mundane task, even after a week and a half of extraordinary torture. She would have wept at the sight of her coffeemaker in that house, and now here she is, less than 24 hours after escaping, measuring the grounds like it’s nothing.

 

After it starts brewing, Maura shakes off her thoughts and turns to Jane. “I’m going to change my clothes,” she says softly.

 

Jane nods, but something in Maura’s voice is tickling at the back of her mind. “Uh, do you want me to wait here?”

 

Maura pauses, and Jane realizes she was right. Maura’s scared. “Um, I…” Maura shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. Jane reaches out and takes her hand.

 

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I’ll come with you.”

 

Maura drops her head, clearly infuriated with herself. When she doesn’t pull it up after a moment, Jane realizes she’s trying not to cry. Again.

 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Jane slides off her stool and walks over to Maura, ducking her shoulder slightly to get it under Maura’s head before wrapping her arms around her. “It’s okay.”

 

“I’m so…” Maura’s voice is small and sad and frustrated, coming out muffled through Jane’s chest. “I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

 

It positively breaks Jane’s heart. “I know. I know you don’t. But it’s still so soon, it’s okay to still be scared to be alone. I promise, it’s okay.”

 

“But I – I have to stop. I have to get better.”

 

“It’ll take time. It’s okay for it to take time.” Jane is rubbing her back again, and Maura wants to throw herself away from this loving safety before its ripped away from her, but she can’t quite bring herself to.

 

“No, I…” She takes a deep breath and lets it out, shuddering. “How am I going to be alone all night if I can’t even go upstairs to change my clothes, in the daylight, while you’re _right here_?” Her voice cracks on the last two words and Jane tightens her arms instinctively.

 

It takes a second for the words to sink in, but when they do Jane actually pulls back from the hug, bringing her hands up to cup Maura’s face. “Oh, no.” She’s kind of whispering but it’s firm and affectionate. “No, Maura, god, I keep messing this up, don’t I?” Maura looks at her, rightfully confused, and Jane keeps going. “Maur, I didn’t mean for you to stay with me the one night and then I’d drop you off and that was that. I meant – I meant for you to stay with me as long as you wanted. Here or my place or whatever.”

 

That gets Maura to look up, tears clinging to her eyes and eyelashes. “What?”

 

“Maura, there is absolutely no way I’m leaving you alone tonight. If you wanna come back with me, I’ll come upstairs with you and we can pack a bag so you can have your own stuff for a couple days. Or we can stay here, whatever. But you’re not getting rid of me that easily, okay?”

 

Maura seems floored and Jane kicks herself for how scared she must have been. “Jane, I can’t keep interfering with your life like this.”

 

“For the love of god, Maura, you’re not interfering, okay? You saved Kylie’s life, and even if you hadn’t, I like being around you, I like helping you, you’re not interfering. The only thing about you that bothers me is when you say you’re bothering me. Capish?”

 

Both of them take a moment, startled by the strength of Jane’s words. But neither of them has it in them, emotionally, to deal with anything that it might mean. So Maura just dips her head back onto Jane’s shoulder and they just stand there, in another kitchen, desperately trying to sew up their hearts.

 

* * *

 

After a quick cup of coffee, change of clothes, packing session, and thorough tortoise-patting, the two leave Maura’s house. They blissfully miss Dr. Barnes this time, and Jane spends most of the ride to Tommy’s trying to goad Maura into ordering double newspapers for the next week or so that she’ll be at Jane’s.

 

Every time Maura laughs or smiles or rolls her eyes, and even when she swats at Jane that one time, Jane feels like she’s finished a marathon, like she’s one of those kids lifting a car off their mother. Proud. Protective.

 

As they get close though, Jane realizes she has some business to deal with. “Hey Maur?”

 

Maura notices the change in vibe immediately. She looks over, concerned. “Yes?”

 

“What, uh, what do you know? About Tommy and Lydia?”

 

“Very little. I didn’t even know their names until I was at the station. Kylie told me, hmm, let me remember.” She lets out a breath as she thinks. “Kylie told me that her daddy was like Bob the Builder, and then she did a little chant afterwards that I didn’t quite understand – it seemed similar to Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan, but I assume that was a coincidence. She said that her mommy, and I quote, ‘wears blue at work with food,’ and I never figured out what that meant.”

 

Jane laughs. “Oh my god, I fucking love that kid. Bob the Builder, that’s a kids’ tv show about a guy in construction. It goes, um, oh yeah, okay, first it goes ‘ _can we fix it_?’ and then it goes ‘ _yes we can_!’ It’s like, his catchphrase.”

 

“So, not related to Obama, then?”

 

“No, I think it pre-dates Obama, actually. Kylie’s into the classics.”

 

Maura grins at the idea of Bob the Builder being a classic. “Is Tommy in construction?”

 

“Uh, well, yeah, I guess.”

 

“You guess?”

 

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Tommy and Lydia, they – look, I’m gonna be blunt here, and I hope you can keep this between us.” Maura nods, and Jane continues, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “They’re kind of a mess. They weren’t totally together when Lydia got pregnant – she actually got a paternity test to see if Ky was Tommy’s or not.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“Yeah. And they’re still definitely on the rocky side. And they’re both kind of idiots. I mean, Tommy’s really smart, actually, like good-at-chess smart, but he flunked out of school and he’s spent some time in jail and stuff. He’s like your classic fuck-up: full of potential, unable to focus on anything or hold down a job. Or basically do anything that he isn’t 100% happy about doing. He’s very…immature, I guess.”

 

“What did he go to jail for?” Maura asks it quietly, and Jane hears the question she’s actually asking. _Do I need to be afraid of him_.

 

“Drunk driving. He hit someone. In a crosswalk. A priest. Our priest, actually. He did a couple years for that. He’d been arrested a couple times before, mostly for drunk and disorderly, once for trespassing. Never for assault or anything. Just dumbass stuff, you know?”

 

Maura nods, slightly reassured. “And Lydia?”

 

“Lydia’s…okay, I hate to say it, but she _is_ an idiot. Not a lot of brains, and it’s not like she had a lot of opportunities or whatever because she didn’t and that sucks, but she’s just kind of useless. She’s an assistant manager at a small supermarket, which is good, she got promoted like six months ago. But she’s just…I don’t know. She’s trying to be good to Kylie – they both are – but they’re both like children themselves. They’re…” Jane pauses, and Maura can tell this is what she really doesn’t want to say, but needs Maura to hear. “They’re not the best parents. That’s why I’m so involved. I mean, I love Ky, I’d be involved no matter what, but Frankie – you met him for a second last night – he and my Ma and I all try to be there for her a lot. To be stable, you know.”

 

“That’s really…that’s really sweet of you.”

 

“Yeah, well, we try.”

 

“She talked a lot about you, you know.” Maura’s voice is soft. They haven’t talked much about what happened in the house since leaving the station, so Jane knows it’s a big deal for Maura to be sharing this with her.

 

“She did?”

 

Maura smiles at how happy that makes Jane. “All the time. She told me that you were big and strong and nice and that you read her books and sing her songs. She told me that you’re – oh, how did she phrase it? – ‘a police’ and you make sure no bad guys get away. She told me about how fun it is when you pick her up from school because you always let her get ice cream.”

 

Jane interrupts, aghast. “Oh my god, that was like two times! Is she telling everybody that? What a rat.”

 

Maura laughs, loud and bright. “It’ll be our secret, Jane.”

  
“Good. Did she talk about my Ma at all? Or Frankie?” Jane’s trying not to push but she can’t help but be curious.

 

“She talked about a ‘Nona,’ which I’m guessing is your mother.”

 

Jane nods. “Yeah it means grandma in Italian.”

 

Maura tries (and fails) to tuck back a smile. “I know. I actually speak Italian.”

 

“What!?” Jane nearly crashes the car. “Wait, really?”

 

Maura knits her eyebrows, confused at the reaction. “Yes, why is that so strange?”

 

“I…I dunno. I just didn’t know.” She looks over at Maura, searchingly. “What else do you speak?” Somehow she knows there’s more.

 

Maura rattles them off, like having even one other language isn’t a huge feat. “French, Spanish, Italian, Swahili, and Serbian. And English, obviously.”

 

“What, only six? Embarrassing.” Jane hasn’t been sarcastic yet, really. This time she couldn’t control it.

 

“Well, only six fluently. I’m passable in Portuguese, Croatian, and a couple local Ugandan dialects.”

 

Apparently the sarcasm thing didn’t work. Jane looks over with a grin. There’s still time.

 

She stops the car in front a shabby little house on a quiet street. She tries not to see it through Maura’s eyes, knowing how much the entire family sacrificed to get together the down payment for this little hut, and how much she and her Ma both kick into the mortgage each month. Instead she just looks over at Maura, who is positively vibrating with nerves.

 

“Ready?”


	7. Chapter 7

They walk up to the porch together. Maura’s entire body is consumed and throbbing with nerves. She’s desperate to see Kylie again – to hold her, to see that she’s safe, to hear her little voice. She’s afraid to meet Tommy and Lydia, afraid that she’ll hate them for getting to be with Ky every day. She’s nervous about walking into family dynamics she doesn’t understand. She’s afraid of being in an unfamiliar house.

 

She’s afraid that Kylie won’t need her anymore. Won’t be happy to see her. Won’t love her.

 

Jane knocks on the door before Maura’s quite ready. Jane waits for the pitter-patter of tiny feet that she’s come to expect on the other side of this door, but nothing happens. She tries the knob and it turns under her hand. “Not safe,” she mutters, as she steps through. She looks over her shoulder to make sure Maura’s behind her.

 

As Maura closes the door behind herself, a woman barrels into the narrow hallway. “Janie!”

 

“Oof! Ma, okay.” Jane’s voice is strangled from inside the woman’s embrace. Her mother finally pulls back, still holding tightly to Jane’s arms.

 

“Oh, baby, I’m just so happy!”

 

“I know, Ma. Me too.”

 

The woman looks behind Jane and sees Maura. Knowing exactly who she is, the woman starts to push past Jane to get to her. Maura tenses immediately. But Jane throws out a straight arm, catching her mother in the stomach and pushing her back into the house.

 

“No touching.” She doesn’t say it in a cruel way, but it’s firm.

 

The woman looks at Jane for a second, and then nods quickly. “Oh, of course.” A small part of Maura swoons, and the rest relaxes, just a little.

 

Jane drops her arm. “Ma, this is Maura. Maura, my mother, Angela.”

 

Maura bobs her head politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rizzoli.”

 

Angela waves her hand around, dramatically shooing off Maura’s formality. “Call me Angela. Maura, honey, you’re the savior of our entire family. You brought us our baby back, safe and sound. That makes you a part of this family now.”

 

Maura starts to protest but Angela talks over her, loud and serious, making firm eye contact. “I mean it, honey. Anytime you ever need anything – a place to stay, a home cooked meal, somewhere to go for the holidays, a ride to the airport – you come to me now. You’re family. You understand?”

 

Maura’s overwhelmed. All she can do is nod and blink back tears. Jane mercifully changes the subject, ushering all of them out of the hallway and into the kitchen. “Ma, what’s going on? How’s Ky?”

 

Angela leads them from the cramped hallway into the small living room. It’s cluttered and the furniture has definitely seen better days, but everything is clean and it smells like fresh baked cookies and Italian cooking. Maura realizes that it actually looks like a room where people do their living, in a way hers never has.

 

Jane is bobbing her head in silent agreement as Angela rambles on about how happy she is to have Kylie back at home. Maura follows them into a tiny kitchen where a couple pots are simmering on the stove, releasing an absolutely heavenly smell. Maura’s stomach pings—even though she just ate recently, her body hasn’t figured out that she has nonstop access to food now, that she doesn’t need to stop what she’s doing immediately to take advantage of food that might not show back up for days. Maura resolutely shoves the feeling back down, willing herself to focus back on what Angela is saying.

 

But just at that moment, a young man pokes his head into the kitchen. Even if she hadn’t been at Jane’s brother’s house, Maura would have known this man was her brother. He looks just like her and like Frankie: black hair, strong features, tall, muscular, attractive. And, like the two of them, completely exhausted.

 

“Hey, Janie,” he says, his voice rough and soft. Jane eels around her mother and makes her way to him, putting her arms around him and rubbing his back a little bit.

 

“Hey, little brother. How are you doing?”

 

He pulls away and shrugs again, and Maura’s chest tightens with fury. She tries to damp down the unkind feelings that rush up in her, but she can’t. _He should be fucking radiant to have this child back with him_. _How dare he look tired or sad. He has Kylie back, he gets to see her every god damned day. How dare he be anything but fucking thrilled_.

 

Jane claps him on the shoulder and leaves her hand there. “Why don’t we go into the living room and talk about it.”

 

As soon as they’re out of the confines of the kitchen (which was clearly made for 1.5 people maximum), Jane gestures for Maura. “Tommy, this is Maura. Maura, Tommy.” Tommy reaches a hand out to shake, but Jane smoothly intercepts it, pushing it back down to his side with a little shake of her head. Tommy doesn’t get it quite as quickly as Angela; Jane has to say “no touching” with a little aggression in her eyes before he finally nods.

 

Maybe it’s because of this that when he finally says “hey,” it sounds a little off. He scuffs his foot on the ground. “Thanks, for, you know, bringin’ her back.”

 

Maura blinks back tears that she doesn’t understand. She nods back to him, completely unsure of what to say. Nothing in her upbringing has prepared her for small talk in this particular situation.

 

“T,” Jane says from the couch, “come sit and tell us what’s going on.”

 

Tommy sits heavily next to her on the couch. Angela sits on his other side, and Jane nods at Maura to take the armchair off to the side.

 

“It’s…I mean, it’s so amazing to have her back, you know? To know she’s okay, that she’s back. But like, I don’t know.” He rubs his hands through his hair and Maura starts to feel badly for how angry she is at him. “I guess I always thought that if we got her back things would just like go back to normal, you know? Like, maybe that was stupid or whatever, but I thought we’d just go back to bein’, like, regular. But she’s like…she’s different.” He looks up at Jane, pleadingly. “And I know that makes sense, that like, she’s seen some shit that she shouldn’t ever have had to see, but like…fuck, I don’t know.”

 

He rubs his head more aggressively and it clicks for Maura that this has been a really terrible day for him too. That having Kylie back has been really hard. That all of the changes Maura saw in the house—how much Kylie learned and grew, how much wiser and less carefree she is—must make her barely recognizable to everyone who wasn’t in that basement. That maybe Tommy misses the Kylie he knew just as much as Maura misses hers.

 

“She’s barely happy to see us, and she’s been fightin’ us on every little thing. No, she won’t eat this, no she won’t wear that, no she won’t lay down here, no she won’t nap, no she won’t drink water, nothing. And we just thought like, okay, it’ll pass, you know? We won’t push it. But now she hasn’t slept or eaten or even like had water, and, so, like, what do we do?” He turns his face to Jane again and his expression is so pleading, so horribly young, that it hurts Maura’s heart. Poor Tommy, reunited with a child he barely recognizes. Poor Jane, saddled with taking care of them all.

 

“Janie? What happened to my kid? Where did she go?”

 

* * *

 

Their conversation is interrupted by a slight blonde woman walking into the living room. Her hair is a little curly, and a lot disheveled. Her large eyes are sunken into their sockets, surrounded by dark rings. _God_ , Maura thinks, _Ky looks just like her._

 

“Tommy,” she says, her voice higher in pitch than Maura expected, “can’t you help for once? She’s under the bed again.”

 

Tommy, clearly frustrated, opens his mouth to argue back, but Jane beats him to it.

 

“Hey Lydia.” Lydia’s head snaps over. “This is Maura. Mind if she and I give it a shot?”

  

* * *

 

Maura follows Jane past the kitchen, down the narrow hallway into a small bedroom on the right. Maura’s eyes are a little dazzled by all the pink—the paint, the toys, the dresser, the bed—but is grounded by the Red Sox hat and Patriots foam finger hung on the back of the closet. She’s seen the same ones in Jane’s living room.

 

Jane strides over to the bed, grabs two things off of it, and crouches down. “Incoming!” She calls softly, and tosses them, one after another, under the bed.

 

A little giggle trickles out.

 

“Hey, critter bug. Whatcha doing under there?” Jane’s voice is casual, like she isn’t nearly doing a handstand just to be able to see her terrified conversation partner who is currently hiding underneath a hot pink canopy bed.

 

“Jus’ hiding.” The tiny little voice goes straight to Maura’s heart and she just aches to be with her.

 

“Oh, that’s cool. Wanna come out and say hi to me?”

 

“No fank you.” Maura stifles a snort. At least she’s polite about it.

 

“Okay then,” Jane says, keeping up her casual optimism. “I guess Maura and I will just go back out to the living room then.” Jane winks over at Maura, and she smiles a little back.

 

There’s a rustling sound, and then a loud thud. Kylie’s blonde little head emerges, eyes wide and excited. “Mo?!” She rubs the top of her head, explaining the thud, as she looks around the room. When her eyes find Maura, she launches herself out from under the bed, slamming herself into Maura and throwing her arms around Maura’s neck. “Mo!!”

 

For the first time, Maura isn’t afraid anymore. For this one moment, she wraps her arms around this tiny body, kisses the top of her head, and just lets herself feel good. “Hi tiny girl,” she says softly.

 

* * *

 

After a couple minutes of quiet cuddling, Maura sits back against the wall, crossing her legs and settling Kylie on her lap. Kylie leans into her, resting her head on Maura’s collarbone. Maura’s entire body is killing her, but she doesn’t care. Jane comes and settles next to her on her right side, sitting so she can see Kylie’s face.

 

“So Ky,” Jane says, still casual. “Wanna tell me why you were under the bed?”

 

Kylie shakes her head, looking down at Maura’s elbow. Jane rolls her eyes, sending up a silent apology for all the times she pulled that particular move on her own mother.

 

“How come you didn’t want to sleep up on the top of your bed?”

 

Kylie finally looks up at Jane, but just narrows her eyes. “Get Hoppy an’ Flappy,” she demands.

 

“Excuse me?” Jane’s eyebrows hit her hair, and Maura works hard to stifle her laugh. _This kid_. She settles for poking Kylie in the side.

 

“Excuse me, tiny girl, is that how you ask your Aunt for things? What do you say?”

 

“Pah-lease, Aunnie Jay, can you get me Hoppy an’ Flappy?”

 

Jane rolls her eyes again but crawls across the room and reaches under the bed, groaning loudly the entire way. Maura realizes Hoppy and Flappy must have been what Jane threw under to get Kylie’s attention when they first came in. Her hand explores everything she can reach, but comes up empty. With a loud huff, and a muttered “Jesus Fucking Christ, kid,” she flops down on her stomach and edges her way under the bed. The groans continue as she scoots under, until all they can see is one arm and one leg. Kylie is giggling hysterically and Maura tries to remember everything about this moment. This simple pleasure.

 

Jane finally makes a loud sound of triumph and then, in a louder fashion than Maura would have thought humanly possible, flumps her way out from under the bed, two soft washcloths clutched in her hand. She crawls back over to her spot on the wall, flops herself down, and tosses the two cloths onto Kylie’s lap.

 

“Here ya go, kid. Oof, I am too old for that.”

 

Maura reaches down and snatches up both washcloths to try to get the dust off before Kylie does something ridiculous like put them in her mouth. “It’s your own fault for throwing them under there,” she mutters, as she cleans off the gray one. Flipping it over, she sees that it has a bunny head on it. “So,” she says to Kylie. “This must be Flappy?”

 

“No!” Kylie cries, laughing. “This Hoppy! Hoppy a rabbit, see!?” She holds him up, basically inside Maura’s eyeballs, and Maura melts even further.

 

“Ohhh,” she says, “that makes sense.” Picking a final dust bunny off the purple one, she asks, “And so this must be Flappy. Is he a…fish?”

 

“NOOO!!!” Kylie and Maura have matching expressions now: shining eyes, huge grins. “He’s a pawwot!”

 

Maura looks over at Jane, confused. Jane immediately helps out. “Yeah kid, he’s a parrot. You stumped the doctor, 100 points for you.”

 

Kylie snuggles back into Maura’s chest, happily toying with Hoppy and Flappy.

 

* * *

 

About an hour later, Maura and Jane come back into the living room. The other three are eating bowls of pasta from their spots in the living room, and, from the looks of it, making pretty serious inroads into a bottle of red wine.

 

“Hey,” Jane says, plopping onto the arm of Angela’s chair and motioning for Maura to sit in the unoccupied straight-back chair near the corner. “She’s asleep.”

 

“Alright.” Tommy stands. “Lemme just go close her door and then we can talk.”

 

“No.” Heads snap over to Maura; she realizes it’s the first time she’s spoken to Tommy or Lydia. She clears her throat nervously, but continues. “She’s scared of closed doors. She’s forgotten that a door can be closed but not locked, I think. We promised her it would stay open.”

 

“Ah, uh, okay.” Tommy sits, nervously.

 

“That’s what we wanted to talk to you two about.” Jane picks up the conversation seamlessly. “I know things have been really hard these past 24 hours – hell, these past two weeks. But I think you just need to make some adjustments. I brought Maura over so she could help explain that kind of thing, like the doors, that Kylie may be scared by or freaking out from or whatever, and just doesn’t know how to tell you.”

 

“I don’t need some stranger telling me how to take care of my own daughter,” Lydia snaps, eyes flashing with anger.

 

Jane and Angela both open their mouths to respond, but Tommy beats them to it. “Lyd,” he says, his voice completely exhausted, “just let her help.”

 

Lydia shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything else.

 

* * *

 

The next half hour is one of the most painful of Maura’s life. Having to tell this family about everything Kylie went through, everything that horrible person did to her, is agony. Angela starts crying after about 2 minutes, and Jane spends the rest of the time rubbing her back. Tommy grates his teeth and seethes. Lydia won’t even make eye contact with any of them. Maura hates herself for having to be the one to tell them this, but it’s important. It’s important that they know.

 

Jane is great: summarizing things, repeating important notes, asking questions to get to things Maura has forgotten to mention. At the end, it’s Jane who says, “Okay, Maura, if there are three things we all need to remember, what would those be?”

 

“First, any sign of confinement will feel like she’s back in the basement. So, no closed doors, not even to the bathroom for a little while. She may even be scared of her car seat, so I’d recommend not going in the car until that gets better. Second, it’s going to be very hard for her to believe that he’s not coming back to get her. Anytime she’s scared, the best thing to tell her is that the badman is gone and he can’t hurt her anymore. And third…” Maura swallows. What she wants to say, what she really believes Kylie needs to know, can’t possibly be said. _Remember that I love you, remember how much I love you, remember how I always kept you safe_. Maura blinks back her tears and swallows again, hard. She hopes only Jane notices. But because she’s trying so hard not to say what’s in her heart, what’s in her medical training pops out of her mouth without any filter. “And third, you need to take her to a therapist. She’s going to need professional help to cope with this.”

 

Tommy, Lydia, and Angela all immediately start to disagree but, again, it’s Jane who silences them. “It’s not a failing.” Her voice is strong and commanding. “It’s just true. There’s someone the department recommends. I’ll set it up.”

 

* * *

 

The drive back to Jane’s house is quiet. Dinner is quiet. Watching the Red Sox game is quiet. It isn’t until they’re brushing their teeth that Jane turns to Maura and asks what she’s thinking about.

 

Maura pulls the cheap toothbrush out of her mouth and surprises herself with the truth. “I’m wondering if loving her will ever not hurt.”

 

* * *

 

Maura sits up in the bed, knees tucked into her chest. She doesn’t know that she’s ever felt so small, so vulnerable. In the house she had Kylie to protect, she had an escape to plan, she had horrible dehumanizing experiences to endure. She felt huge, in that basement, like she was just going to expand and expand and then it would explode from her presence. She knew, somehow, that she was going to get that little girl out. Even though she was trapped, assaulted, degraded, hurt, starved, terrified, she was also invincible.

 

And now, she is nothing but a small skinny little woman with no family, no friends, no hope. She has never been so small, so insignificant. So damaged.

 

She wraps her arms around herself and cries as quietly as she can. The “don’t close any doors” rule seems to have been applied in this home too, and she doesn’t want Jane to hear her. She doesn’t want to seem ungrateful. She doesn’t want to seem like she’s not getting better.

 

But Jane has to pee, and that brings her close enough to bedroom to realize what’s going on. She softly walks into the room, sits down on the bed next to Maura and gently strokes her hair.

 

Maura sniffles loudly. “I’m sorry,” her small voice muffled by her knees. “I wish I could stop crying. It’s just—it’s just that my amygdala and lacrimal gland have a connection I can’t really control.”

 

Jane chuckles and encourages Maura to lie down. After a few deep breaths, Maura realizes that Jane is lying down with her too. She blinks, twice, trying to keep herself from feeling too comforted. “Are we having a sleepover or is this your way of telling me it’s my night for the couch?”

 

Jane chuckles again, low and deep.


	8. Chapter 8

Somehow it’s been two weeks. It has officially been fourteen days since Maura was in the badhouse – five more than the number of days she spent in the house. Maura’s stopped napping so much and is back to four or five discrete meals a day, rather than the near constant grazing she did the first couple of days out. Her ribs don’t ache every time she takes a breath and she can stand for more than couple moments at a time without bleeding through her socks. Her body is healing.

 

She only wishes it were as easy to heal her heart and her mind. It doesn’t feel like it’s been fourteen days when every time she closes her eyes she’s back in that house. Back in the basement, or worse, back upstairs—trying to ignore her hands on his body and Kylie swallowed by the belt, her little back turned, eyes closed, singing the alphabet with her hands over her ears.

 

The daylight hours are better. During the day she can go with Jane to the grocery store or go visit Bass or read a lighthearted novel or go to a matinee of the ballet she’d gotten tickets to months ago.

 

But she’s still at Jane’s house.

 

It’s not like they’ve talked about it, it’s not like a decision was made. It’s just that each day has melted into the next, each hour just something to be experienced, and now here they are. Fourteen days out and still roommates.

 

Jane hasn’t slept on the couch once.

 

Maura knows they have to talk about it soon. She has to go back to her house soon. But not this hour. Not today. Not tonight. Not just yet.

 

* * *

 

It’s Monday at 4:15pm, so Maura’s fifteen minutes into her therapy session. Dr. Riley is younger than Maura had expected, and on the first meeting, Maura had been thrown by her tattoos and the alternative vibe the therapist put out. But, within the first twenty minutes, Maura had realized that Dr. Riley was very, very good, and had silently chided herself for her prejudice.

 

“How are things going with Jane?” Dr. Riley blithely sips a cup of tea, like it isn’t the most contentious topic between the two of them.

 

“Things are…fine.” Maura tries to keep her voice measured. She likes Dr. Riley and respects her, but she’s increasingly frustrated by how often the doctor wants to talk about Jane.

 

“I noticed she’s waiting for you in the lobby again.”

 

This isn’t a question, so Maura (petulantly, she knows) doesn’t respond. Dr. Riley doesn’t seem perturbed. “You slept with her again.”

 

Maura rolls her eyes. “That’s a misleading statement.”

 

Dr. Riley nearly grins. “In what way?”

 

Maura gets frustrated, aggressively picking lint off her skirt and mindlessly falling into stern formality. “While the facts of the statement are true, in common parlance that phrase implies sex, which, as I have repeatedly told you, is not a part of my relationship with Jane.”

 

“But you want it to be.” Dr. Riley says it quickly and firmly, still smiling.

 

Maura dismissively waves a hand in the air. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

Dr. Riley arches an eyebrow. “That’s not a no, Maura.”

 

Maura lets out a loud huff of air, trying not to yell. Dr. Riley is baiting her and she _will not rise to it_.

 

Dr. Riley watches her with a glint in her eye that Maura doesn’t like. “Why does it bother you so much when I bring up Jane?”

 

“It doesn’t bother me,” Maura lies through gritted teeth. “It just feels like a spectacular waste of time.”

 

“A _spectacular_ waste of time?” Dr. Riley’s eyebrows shoot up. “Not just a waste but a _spectacular_ waste! Why is that?” She’s openly amused now and it is really pissing Maura off.

 

“Because!” She can’t seem to control her tone anymore; she’s actually yelling. “Because I was…I was taken from my home and my life and assaulted and held against my will, and…and _fucking_ _kidnapped_ and I can barely sleep and I can’t work and I miss Kylie so much that I think it might be easier to die sometimes, and all you want to do is talk about _Jane_? Is make jokes about _sex_ with Jane? How in the world is that anything less than a…a colossal waste of time??”

 

Dr. Riley blinks at her a couple of times.

 

In the heavy silence, Maura can hear her words ringing back at her, and she can’t help but regret them. After a few minutes, she says, “I’m sorry.” Her voice is smaller and chagrined.

 

“You don’t need to be sorry for yelling at me.” Dr. Riley’s voice is soft.

 

“I just want to get better.”

 

Dr. Riley nods. She’s good at knowing what Maura is trying to say. “I know that you think you’ll only get better if you talk about your trauma. But, Maura, what if I told you that talking about Jane is one of the ways that you’ll get better? If I told you that it’s just as important for us to talk about Jane as it is to talk about Kylie, or about James Fleiss?”

 

Maura flinches at the name, as she does every time, but she nods. She’s silent for a couple of minutes. Dr. Riley seems content to sip her tea and wait.

 

Finally, Maura says, in a small but clear voice, “I don’t want to have sex with Jane. I don’t want to have sex with anyone. I don’t know that I ever will again. But I…I can’t imagine how much it will hurt when I don’t sleep with her anymore.”

 

* * *

 

Kylie’s therapy isn’t going as well. Things haven’t changed much at home. She cries herself to sleep at night and wakes up screaming from nightmares. She unpredictably fights her parents at random times of the day – on Friday she’d refused to eat breakfast, but on Saturday she’d been happy during breakfast but gotten hysterical when she had to put on socks and shoes. She refuses to nap, so by four in the afternoon each day she’s a cranky exhausted zombie. She’s snapped at everyone in her life except Maura. Even Auntie Jane has been screamed at and kicked once or twice, but not Maura.

 

Kylie seems to be reserving the worst of her behavior for her mother, which has certainly not softened relations between Maura and Lydia.

 

Maura wishes she could be around more, help Kylie more, but Tommy and Lydia haven’t exactly embraced her with open arms. An invitation comes, via Jane, to come over roughly twice a week for a couple of hours, and that’s all Maura gets.

 

It isn’t enough. She doesn’t know if any amount of time would be enough, but this isn’t even close. Maura feels like she’s disintegrating, and, she’s pretty sure, Kylie does too.

 

It hurts enough that Maura calls Dr. Riley on Wednesday evening, sobbing. She hasn’t seen Kylie since Monday morning and it might actually be killing her. Jane drives Maura to Dr. Riley’s office, and actually escorts her into the room this time simply because Maura won’t let go of her.

 

Dr. Riley takes one look at them and throws the rulebook out the window. “Maura, would you like Jane to stay in here with us for a little bit?”

 

Maura nods so emphatically that Jane is concerned she’s going to hurt herself. They sit down on the couch, both of Maura’s hands clutching Jane’s in a death grip.

 

It’s actually Jane who does most of the talking. She explains to Dr. Riley in a soft, measured tone what’s been going on with Kylie at home and how she’s been adjusting. Maura doesn’t say anything until Jane mentions how much Maura misses her.

 

“I don’t just _miss_ her, Jane, that’s not it.”

 

“What is it, then?” Dr. Riley leans forward, hands clasped together.

 

“It’s…missing someone…I miss my father but I don’t feel like my body is going to just cave in on itself if I don’t see him. I don’t feel like I’m actually going to die if I don’t see him. Kylie is…god, it’s like when I was starving in the house. Seeing her this little is like—it’s like getting enough food to live until tomorrow but never enough to not be hungry every minute of every day. I don’t just miss her; I need her, I need to be with her, I need to see her, I need to see that she’s safe.”

 

“If you don’t see her, do you think she’s not safe?” Dr. Riley is looking at her intently, and Jane’s grip on her hands tightens a little bit.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Dr. Riley leans forward. “What do you know?”

 

“I know that when I’m not with her, I’m not safe.” Jane sucks in a breath, and Maura closes her eyes as she finishes. “And I think it’s the same for her.”

  

* * *

 

Apparently Dr. Riley was concerned enough that on Friday she cancelled all her other appointments. First she and Kylie’s therapist, Dr. Stern, have a session with just Kylie. Then one with Kylie and both her parents. And then one with Kylie and Maura.

 

It isn’t like any therapy session Maura’s ever had before. She just gets to spend an hour playing with Kylie – building with blocks and coloring and telling stories while Kylie cuddles up on her lap. Without Tommy and Lydia looking over her shoulder, Maura doesn’t hold back any of the affection that Kylie asks for, and they both are, for that hour, blissfully happy.

 

But of course the high can’t last.

 

On Monday, three weeks after her escape, Maura walks out of Dr. Riley’s office after her usual session, looks Jane and in the eye and says heavily, “We have to talk.”

 

* * *

 

Jane orders a pizza (half pepperoni, half mushroom) and opens a bottle of red wine.

 

“Maur, you’re really scaring me here.”

 

“Dr. Riley talked to me about what she thinks is going on with Kylie and it’s…not good.”

 

Jane swallows hard. “Just say it.”

 

“How much do you know about attachment theory?”

 

Jane shows a surprising amount of pizza as her mouth hangs open. Her brain is clicking rapidly—moving from what she expected (Kylie will never get better) to what she heard (academic jargon). “Uh…nothing?”

 

“Alright. So. Attachment theory at its base is very simple—“

 

Jane holds up a hand. “Wait, Maura, lecture later. You said something was wrong with Ky. Just tell me what it is.”

 

“I am. This is important, I promise.” Her eyes hold Jane’s, concerned but steady.

 

Jane sighs. _This won’t be quick, then_. “Okay, go on.”

 

Maura clasps her hands in front of her and beings. “So, as I was saying, attachment theory is fundamentally simple. It’s the way of classifying the relationship between children and their mothers or other primary caregiver. At it’s most basic, it’s how the child is attached to her parent.”

 

“You mean how good their relationship is?”

 

“Sort of. But it’s one sided. The parent doesn’t have an attachment style to the child, only the child has one. It’s how the child thinks of her parent, how she trusts the parent, and how she acts toward the parent. Although of course all of those things are primarily determined by how the parent acts toward her.”

 

“Okay. I think that makes sense.”

 

Maura takes a sip of wine and brushes her hair off her shoulder. “At a highly simplified level, they figured it out through a little experiment. Put a young child and her mother in a room, surrounded by toys, and have the mother leave. After a while, have the mother come back. The child’s reaction to the departure and the return, in addition to what she does in between, tell us about her attachment style to her mother. Does she cry or not cry? Does she play with the toys after the mother leaves? Is she happy to see the mother when she comes back? There is only really one good type of attachment, which is called secure. Think about a well-adjusted child. What would you expect her to do when her mother leaves?”

 

Jane scratches behind her ear and hopes she isn’t getting pizza grease all over herself like last time. “Uh, like, a normal kid?” Maura nods. “Probably be a little sad but then get over it?”

 

Maura nods again, toying with the stem of her wine glass. “Exactly. The securely attached child will be distressed when her mother leaves, maybe cry, but will then be distracted by the toys. In a daycare setting, she’ll begin playing with the teachers and other children quickly and easily. And would do you expect her to do when her mother returns?”

 

The corner of Jane’s mouth quirks up. “Well, judging from when I picked up Ky, show off her drawings for like an hour.”

 

Maura smiles. “Right. She’ll be ecstatic to see her mother again, and may try to integrate her mother into her existing play. She’ll run up, hug her mother, offer physical affection and be happy to receive physical affection back.”

 

“Okay, so?”

 

“So, that’s the good form of attachment. But there are bad ones.” Maura holds up two long fingers. “Two that are important here: ambivalent and avoidant.”

 

Jane’s eyes narrow. “Those really don’t sound good.”

 

Maura grimaces. “They aren’t. The ambivalent child essentially doesn’t trust her mother to be there for her consistently. That distrust makes her try to take control of the interactions from her parent, displaying anger or disinterest when her mother comes back. This child still wants her mother around—she becomes extremely distressed when her mother leaves—but then is hostile or disinterested when she comes back.”

 

“So, like, a heartbroken teenager who cries when their boyfriend walks out and then when he comes back is like: fuck you I never loved you anyway?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Like: I don’t need you, watch me not need you, you total asshole?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Jane leans back in her chair. “Okay, bad version one, check.”

 

Maura nods. “The avoidant child is a little different. The ambivalent child is deeply upset when her mother leaves and then angry or disinterested when she returns. But the avoidant child is disinterested all the time. She doesn’t care when her mother leaves and doesn’t care when she returns. This usually happens when a child believes that her emotions have no bearing on the presence or caring of the mother.”

 

“Wait, so this kid is like: whether I cry or not my mom doesn’t do anything differently, so why bother?”

 

“Yes, and it’s even worse: whether I cry or not my mom doesn’t do anything differently from what she is already doing, which is not supportive or loving towards me anyway, so why bother.”

 

“Oh, fuck.”

 

“It is believed that the child wants closeness and love so badly that, if she lets herself feel it, it would hurt so much, that she doesn’t even ask for it. She’s basically put up a wall between what she wants and what she asks for.”

 

“You can’t break up with me, I’m breaking up with you.”

 

“Almost. More like: you can’t break up with me because I was so scared of you breaking up with me that I didn’t start dating you in the first place.”

 

Jane is silent for a second because those words feel just a little too true between the two of them. But then she realizes why Maura has told her all of this.

 

“Maur. Don’t tell me Ky has one of those.”

 

Maura lets out a deep breath. “They think she might.”

 

“But she…she was totally the first one!”

 

Maura holds up a hand to stop Jane’s protest. “I know, Jane. I know. This is what they think. They think, and I agree, that Kylie was securely attached to both Tommy and Lydia before she was taken.” Jane nods. “But then, in the house, she was sad and scared and they didn’t come get her. She’s too young to understand that they _wanted_ to but they _couldn’t_. So she thought they didn’t want to. Remember, she’s young enough to think adults can do literally anything they want. So if they left her in the badhouse, it’s because _they didn’t want to come get her and take her home_. They think this idea distressed her so much she started disassociating from her secure attachment to them.”

 

Tears well up in Jane’s eyes. It’s the saddest thing she’s ever heard. Her poor, lost, lonely, sad, little baby. It never occurred to Jane that Kylie wouldn’t have understood that they were trying to get to her but that they couldn’t. It makes a heartbreaking amount of sense.

 

But on top of this overwhelming sadness, dread starts to form in Jane’s stomach as realization dawns. She speaks in a low monotone. “And then you showed up.”

 

“Yes. And then I showed up.” Maura looks up at Jane, tears in her own eyes. “I showed up and they—they think she securely attached to me instead. That, somehow, because of how traumatic it was, she replaced me as…” Maura’s voice sticks for a moment. “As the m-mother figure, and attached to me. I-I made her feel safe and loved and cared for.” Maura wraps her arms around her own waist, holding herself together. _You are not her mother. You are not her mother_.

 

Jane rubs her eyes. “So if she securely attached to you, then what happened to how she’s attached to T and Lydia?”

 

Maura shakes her head a little. “They’re not sure. She’s displaying some elements of ambivalence and some of avoidance. If I had to venture a guess, which I hate doing, I’d say she’s more on the avoidance side and is acting angry because of her generalized fear, not because of how she’s attached to them.”

 

Jane nods. “That makes sense. But either way, it’s bad, right?”

 

Maura nods back. “Either way it’s bad. Essentially, she doesn’t trust them to take care of her or give her what she needs anymore. Since they didn’t come save her from the house, in her mind they aren’t capable of fulfilling any of her needs or taking care of her.”

 

“Let me get this straight. So before it was like: _no matter what happens my parents are here for me_. And then something bad happened and her parents weren’t there for her and she thinks that’s because they didn’t want to be, because they didn’t love her enough or whatever. So now it’s like: _where is the guarantee that’s not going to happen again_? Like, basically: _what kind of idiot would I be to trust you again when you could just fuck up again at any min_ ute?”

 

Maura swallows. “Yes.”

 

Jane’s voice is somehow both heartbroken and resigned. “She doesn’t trust them anymore.”

 

“No, she doesn’t.”

 

Jane swallows and says what they both know. “She only trusts you.”

 

“Yes. She only trusts me.” Maura’s voice is soft and sad, and Jane knows she doesn’t take any pleasure from that statement.

 

“Well, fuck. What does this mean?”

 

Maura lets out a breath and shrugs a little. “Dr. Stern is telling Lydia and Tommy about this today, and then the three of them are going to come up with some plans of action. Dr. Riley suggested that Kylie and I see each other regularly, at least every other day if not every day, so that she has something reliable that she can count on that makes her feel loved and safe. But I don’t know if they’ll agree to that.”

 

Jane looks into Maura’s eyes and asks the big looming question. “Can she change back?”

 

Maura’s eyes soften. “I’m not sure. I really hope so, Jane.”

 

“Yeah. Me too.”

 

* * *

 

That night they get into bed. Jane reaches over to turn off the light, but Maura’s voice stops her. “She can still have a good life.”

 

“What?” Jane rolls over to look at her.

 

“If she doesn’t change back. Children with avoidant attachment—they can live good lives. Often adults who grew up that way are a little distant or aloof and have some trouble with relationships but…” Maura swallows. “They can be okay.” Her voice cracks and she bites her lip to keep from saying anything else.

 

In that moment, Jane understands everything. Poor sad, lonely, sweet Maura. She reaches over and takes her hand. Her words are strong and firm and full of conviction. “You’re more than okay, Maura.”

 

Maura can’t help it. She rolls into Jane and tucks her head into Jane’s neck, trying not to cry.

 

Jane reaches up to rub her back. “You’re so much more than okay.”

 

* * *

 

Later that night, like every night, Maura asks, “Are we having a sleepover or is it my turn for the couch?” And, like every night, Jane replies, “Good night Maura.”

 

“Jane.”

 

Jane makes a sleepy noise back at her from across the bed. They don’t fall asleep spooning anymore, although they usually wake up that way (but it would be in poor taste to mention it).

 

“Are we ever going to talk about this?”

 

“Talk about what?” Jane’s voice is muffled by her pillow, so Maura can’t tell if she’s genuinely asking or just faking it to avoid the conversation.

 

Maura’s voice is small and scared. “About this.” She gestures between them, lying together in Jane’s bed for the twenty-first night in a row. In an even smaller voice she says, “About us.”

 

Jane is quiet for a moment and Maura wonders if she’s feigning sleep. But then she says, her voice soft but firm. “Yeah, we will. But not yet, okay? I don’t…we’re not ready.”

 

Maura doesn’t know what that means, exactly, but she says “okay” anyway, and lets herself fall asleep.

 

This time it’s Jane who lays awake, brain churning.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: discussion of past sexual assault (very little detail). To avoid it, stop reading when you get to "But what she hears as she approaches the living room stops her in her tracks."

To her surprise, Tommy and Lydia agreed to a regular visitation schedule. Tuesdays and Thursdays Maura picks Kylie up from preschool at 2pm and has her until dinner at 5pm. On Saturdays Maura gets the whole afternoon. It’s been a little over two months of this arrangement and Maura is so grateful for it.

 

It’s still not enough, but it’s so good.

 

Kylie is doing much better. She’s back in preschool and, while she continues to act out much more than she used to, she’s certainly manageable. She hasn’t had to be picked up early once, which is better than anyone had hoped.

 

She’s stopped throwing so many fits at home, which Maura thinks is both good and bad – good because she’s easier to handle, but bad because she’s becoming more avoidant to her parents. But she’s as sweet as could be to Jane, Angela, and Frankie. Jane is around for a lot of Maura’s time with Kylie, and Angela usually joins them at the park once or twice a week. She had very thoughtfully asked Maura’s permission because she “didn’t want to intrude on the special time,” but Maura had insisted. It’s not that she needs to be _alone_ with Kylie, she just needs to be _with_ Kylie, period. Even Frankie joins them sometimes, when he can get off work.

 

Maura’s favorite memories from those months are of warm summer days at the park: watching Jane and Frankie toss a football back and forth, listening to Angela reading a book to an enthralled Kylie who is tucked up in Maura’s lap and dripping juice all over her.

 

Angela, true to her word, is treating Maura as a part of the family. She fusses over Maura – did she bring a sweater? Is she hungry? Is she lonely? Does she need any money? Is she hungry? She often calls Maura just to chat, conversations that often end up being an hour or more. Jane likes to whine that Angela isn’t really treating her like family because she hasn’t set an annoying ringtone on Maura’s phone, which just makes Maura roll her eyes every time.

 

Angela constantly asks if Maura’s seeing anyone, or (after Maura invariably says no) asks when she’s going to start dating again because Angela knows several nice young men she could recommend. Maura’s actually so firm and unwavering in her answers that Angela pulls Jane aside once to ask if Maura’s either a lesbian (“I know some nice young women too, honey”) or if that terrible man had (she dropped her voice as low as possible) “done things to her.” Jane had just shaken her head, both because it was none of her mother’s business and because, honestly, she had no idea. She has some pretty awful suspicions but Maura’s never said anything outright and Jane wants to be respectful.

 

Angela never says goodbye to Maura without giving her a long hug and handing over a Tupperware full of lasagna or cookies or cannoli even bigger than the one she always hands to Jane. It’s sweet and generous, but a little strange for Maura because Angela doesn’t know that Maura still hasn’t moved home. No one knows, except for Dr. Riley. They’re not ashamed of it, exactly, they just know how it sounds. _No, we’re not dating or having sex, we just spend all of our time together and unofficially live together in the same bed but it’s totally under control and not weird please don’t ask any follow-up questions_.

 

Twice more, Maura’s tried to talk about it. The first time was about a month and half ago. Maura had made a very unhealthy breakfast with an insane amount of coffee and watched Jane like a hawk for the moment when she would be caffeinated and sated but not sluggish from the carb intake. When the moment arrived, she’d pounced. “Should we talk about it now, Jane? About us?”

 

But Jane had just looked at her with those soft, loving eyes and said, “Not yet.”

 

The second time was two weeks ago on her own living room floor. She’d spent the whole drive over convincing Jane that she needed to bond with Bass and that the best way to do so was to feed him and pat his shell. Jane, with extreme reluctance, agreed, and was at that moment gingerly patting him while he ignored the strawberry on offer. The look on her face—a mixture of nerves, long-suffering patience, and humor—was so adorable, and the fact that she was doing this was so sweet, that Maura’s feelings swelled up in her like a tsunami. She felt so much, so hard, that she had to say something.

 

But all she could say was, “Should we talk about it?”

 

And Jane, without looking away from Bass, said, with a slightly trembling voice, “Not yet.”

 

* * *

 

Jane had gone back to work. Maura spent the first several shifts with Angela, still afraid to be alone. But, slowly, she became accustomed to being by herself in Jane’s apartment. And then, even more slowly, she’d started going out by herself.

 

Dr. Riley came with her the first time she went back to the Whole Foods where she’d been taken. She’d cried a little, but managed to buy her groceries without making a public scene or completely breaking down.

 

Her own home still scared her – it was so big – but Dr. Riley said she wasn’t too worried about that. She said she had a plan for whenever Maura was ready to move out of Jane’s. Maura had huffed a little bit but hadn’t protested at her use of the word “move,” because, honestly, it was pretty true at this point.

 

Jane is working cold cases right now, because the hours are more regular and she can pop out when she needs to visit Maura or help take care of Kylie. It’s unfathomably generous of her—Maura can barely wrap her mind around it.

 

Maura has not gone back to work. She isn’t sure if she ever can. The idea of performing an autopsy scares her. The idea of ever being targeted by someone like him again terrifies her. The idea of being alone in a huge morgue petrifies her. She talks a lot with Dr. Riley about whether this is letting him win. She remembers that she used to love her work, but it’s like she can’t access that feeling anymore.

 

For now, she concentrates on therapy, staying in shape while still healing up, her relationship with Jane, and, most importantly, on being there for Kylie.

 

* * *

 

At 9am on Saturday, Lydia texts Jane. “can u get k @ 10 2day? got a shift”.

 

Jane is beyond frustrated with Lydia. The woman is being insane about Kylie and Maura. Yes, this must be tremendously difficult, Jane gets that, but Lydia won’t even contact Maura directly. She always goes through Jane. Which would be weird but fine if she knew they were sort of living together, but is insane when you realize she thinks Jane isn’t with Maura right now. It’s rude as hell and it pisses Jane off.

 

She takes three angry deep breaths, and, of course, Maura notices. “What’s wrong? What happened?” Then her face falls. Her voice is suddenly very small. “Did…did they cancel this afternoon?” She twists a ring around her finger nervously.

 

Jane could kick herself. “Oh, no, it’s actually good news. How’d you like two extra hours with the nugget today?”

 

Maura’s grin lights up the room.

 

* * *

 

Maura knocks on the door and hears the sound of tiny feet racing toward the door before it’s wrenched open. Kylie’s been told a million times not to open the door herself but she never listens when she knows it’s Maura on the other side. She, as always, launches herself into Maura who, as always, scoops her up and hugs her, hard.

 

“HI MO!” She chirps.

 

“Hi tiny girl.”

 

“I’m so glad you comed early!” Kylie is excitedly pulling on hair on both sides of Maura’s head, making Maura laugh.

 

“Me too, sweet girl!”

 

“Hey, where’s my hug?” Jane’s voice comes from closer behind Maura than she expected, and she resists the urge the lean backwards and just rest against her.

 

Kylie leaves one arm around Maura’s neck but extends the other, inviting Jane to join them in a three-way hug. “Right here Aunnie Jay!”

 

Jane obliges, leaning in and kissing Ky on the top of her head. She reaches a hand up to rub her back but mostly just rubs Maura’s arm by accident. She looks over to apologize but Maura just looks so happy that she just smiles at her instead. Maura looks like she’d like to stay in this three-way hug for the rest of the day and, honestly, Jane wouldn’t mind it either.

 

Kylie, however, has other plans. “LES GO TO THE PARP!”

 

Both Maura and Jane flinch away, wondering how such a tiny person can make such a loud sound.

 

“Can you say ‘parkkkkk’?” Maura asks. She cannot for the life of her figure out why a child who can say “Kylie” can’t say “park,” and she’s refusing to give up on it, even though Jane’s told her to let it go at least ten times.

 

This time is no different from the others. “PARP PARP PARP!” Kylie chirps, thrilled out of her little mind. Jane bursts out laughing and Maura rolls her eyes, handing the child over.

 

“You two deserve each other.”

 

Jane settles Kylie on her hip, still grinning, while Kylie softly chants “parp parp parp!” over and over again. She follows Maura into the house to say goodbye to Lydia. They learned early on that Lydia reacts badly to seeing Maura holding Ky, so they’re careful to make sure Jane always carries her or holds her hand in the house.

 

“Have her back by five,” is Lydia’s only greeting.

 

“Of course.” Maura is never anything but polite and friendly to Lydia, which makes Jane even more angry. “How are you doing, Lydia?” Maura is smiling, trying her best to look casual and comfortable.

 

“Fine. Just late for my shift. Bye, Kylie.” She stands and waits for Kylie to say something back, but Kylie isn’t even looking at her.

 

Jane knows what to do, because she’s been doing a lot of reading on avoidant kids. She bounces Kylie a little in her arms. “Ky, what do you say when Mommy leaves?”

 

Kylie answers in a deadpan, without even looking up from where she’s toying with Jane’s necklace. “ByeMommyhaveagoodday.” It could not be clearer that she doesn’t mean it.

 

Lydia huffs in frustration and leaves without saying anything else, or even giving her a hug or kiss goodbye. Jane gnashes her teeth together, and even Maura looks openly concerned. Jane knows for a fact that Tommy and Lydia have been given very explicit instructions for how to act when Kylie is ignoring them, and that was certainly not it.

 

But it’s hard to stay mad when, as soon as the front door closes, Ky looks over at Maura, throws her arms up in the air, and says, “MO AND KY AND AUNNIE JAY GOING TO THE PARP!!!”

  

* * *

 

Kylie crushes the park. She swings, she slides, she jumps, she climbs, she runs, she sings, she escapes from hot lava, she steers the pirate ship, she enthusiastically tears up great fistfuls of grass, she sheepishly tries to put the grass back after she gets scolded (“sorry grassies”), she picks dandelions and spits all over them while making her wish, and she gets Auntie Jane to hold her up as she goes through the motions of the monkey bars. After a couple hours of furious play, she flops, exhausted, onto the blanket Maura and Jane are sitting on.

 

“Are you tired, Ky?”

 

“NO!”

 

Well, sure. Jane has a trick for this, of course. “Wanna look at the clouds with me?”

 

Jane lies down on her back and a raised eyebrow gets Maura to do the same. Jane smiles to herself at how Maura double-checks that her head will land on the blanket, not the grass, and how she primly crosses her ankles over each other. Kylie lies down between them, snuggling into them both. Maura tucks her outside arm under her head and grins when Kylie reaches over to grab her other one, mindlessly playing with her fingers.

 

Jane points up to a particularly fluffy cloud. “I think that one looks like a rabbit.”

 

“No! Cotton candy!”

 

“What about that one over there? It looks like a train.”

 

“No! Cotton candy too!”

 

Maura tries to keep her laughter inside, but, the longer this goes on, the harder it is. Jane starts making up the most ridiculous things she can think of for the clouds to look like (a baby dragon, Uncle Frankie’s butt, a pile of paperwork, the Pythagorean theorem) and every single time Kylie says “No, cotton candy” and giggles hysterically.

 

Maura is just so, so happy.

 

At some point Jane and Kylie devolve into a small tickle fight, and Kylie seeks refuge by climbing on top of Maura. Maura wraps her up in both arms and Kylie just snuggles into her. Jane immediately stops the tickle attack, and Maura runs a soothing hand over Kylie’s back. Kylie takes a few deep breaths and then sticks her thumb in her mouth. Her eyes quickly start to droop.

 

Maura is incredibly impressed. Jane really is a manipulative mastermind.

 

Jane scoots a little closer and, as Kylie slips into sleep, takes a deep breath and then boldly reaches over and takes Maura’s hand.

 

They’ve held hands probably countless times by now, but Maura knows immediately this is different. This isn’t for comfort or for safety or for protection. This isn’t to prevent someone being scared or upset. This is just…the only word Maura can think of is _loving_. This is like how Jane might take her hand if she’d never been kidnapped and they had just met each other like normal people, at work or at a bar. This seems like Jane is making a move. Maura rubs her thumb along Jane’s hand, silently begging her not to let go.

 

After a couple of moments, Jane clears her throat and whispers, so she doesn’t wake up Kylie, “Should…should we talk about it?”

 

But this time it’s Maura who gently shakes her head. This moment is perfect. For once in her life, she knows enough without asking questions. For once in her life, she doesn’t need to know more. “No. Not yet.”

 

“Okay,” Jane whispers. She squeezes Maura’s hand again and closes her eyes.

 

They stay that way for at least an hour. Jane falls asleep quickly, still holding onto Maura, letting the sun bake the tension out of her forehead and lightening the bags under her eyes. Kylie is passed out hard on top of Maura, her head nestled in Maura’s neck and her little feet just hitting the top of Maura’s thighs. She’s incredibly warm and Maura’s going to be bathed in sweat but she wouldn’t change a single thing.

 

Maura stays awake the whole time, not thinking about anything; just committing to memory how it feels to be so loved and warm. How it feels to belong to family.

 

* * *

 

The next day Maura is still high from their day at the park, so she allows Jane to drag her to Angela’s for family dinner. She’s gone twice before. The first time was so recently after she’d escaped that she was able to spend most of the night camped out in Kylie’s room, reading stories and avoiding Kylie’s parents. The second time, Tommy had been visibly uncomfortable that she was there, and Lydia had been openly hostile from the moment they walked in the door until the moment they left (early). Maura had vowed to never go back.

 

But tonight Frost and Jane’s old partner Korsak are coming, and all day Jane’s been leaning hard on how important it is to her that Maura and Frost become friends. Maura’s main association of Frost is still the interrogation room the night she had escaped, so she understands why Jane wants her to make some different memories with him. She thinks that Jane’s guilt about that night is adding extra fuel; if none of them have to remember that room when they think about each other, maybe she can finally start to put that behind them.

 

That night still presses so heavily on Jane. Maura knows that Jane beats herself up about it all the time. She’d apologized constantly until Maura had finally told her, firmly, that she only thought about it when Jane was apologizing, so if they wanted to move past it could Jane please just stop talking about it? Maura knows that she was only able to move past it so quickly herself because, in the light of what she’d just survived, it had been nothing. But she has a suspicion it was the cruelest Jane had ever been, the worst she had ever treated another person in her life. Maura understands that’s hard to move past, especially now that their lives are so entwined.

 

So if it will make Jane feel better for Maura to spend time with Frost tonight, she’s willing to do it. Even if it means spending time with Tommy and Lydia.

 

But they aren’t there. Maura’s both deeply disappointed to not get to see Ky and profoundly relieved to not have to spend hours ignoring how much Lydia hates her.

 

Dinner itself is lovely. Angela’s food is delicious, as always, and Maura lets herself relax, not terribly focused on following the conversation about a current case. After dinner, Maura tries to help Korsak and Angela clean up while Jane and the boys head into the living room to turn on the Patriots game. Angela quickly shoos Maura out of the kitchen, insisting that “us old folks will clean up” and that “young people need to enjoy themselves.” Maura has a bit of sneaking suspicion that something might be brewing between Angela and Korsak so she’s happy to make herself scarce.

 

But what she hears as she approaches the living room stops her in her tracks.

 

“Wait, so you didn’t hook up with her after all that?” That’s Frankie’s voice.

 

Maura freezes. Are they talking about her? She doesn’t breathe and all she can think is how incredibly angry she’ll be with Jane if she’ll talk to _them_ about it but not to _her_ when she’s been practically begging for it.

 

But it’s Frost who answers. “Dude, I just said that we did.” Maura lets out a deep a shuddering breath. It’s not about her. It’s not even about Jane. But, before she can take a step, Frankie cuts in.

 

“Nah, dude, hand stuff doesn’t count.”

 

Maura freezes again, worse this time.

 

“Yeah it does! Hand stuff totally counts.”

 

“No way, man. Hooked up means like real sex or a blowie. Hand stuff is for like, ninth graders.”

 

“Gross, you guys. I don’t want to think about either of you do doing any of that shit.” That’s Jane’s voice, but Maura’s too far gone to let it soothe her.

 

She’s out the door before she knows what she’s doing, walking quickly down the block. Her breath has returned and she’s taking great shuddering gasps, trying to keep from slipping fully into a flashback or passing out.

 

Gradually she gets enough control over herself to realize that she’s outside, alone, in the dark, in a neighborhood she barely knows. She spins on her heel to head quickly back to Angela’s – maybe she’ll sit on the front step where if she screamed they would hear her – when she crashes into someone standing just behind her who reaches out and grabs her arm, hard.

 

She starts a scream, but cuts it off when the person says “Maura!” Thank god, it’s Jane.

 

“Jane.” Maura says it with profound relief, trying to smile.

 

But Jane is furious. “What the hell, Maur?! What the hell were you thinking walking out of there like that? It’s not safe out here! What if—“ her voice cracks a little bit. “What if something happened to you?”

 

Maura swallows down the flippant response that came to her, seeing how upset Jane is. Feeling how hard Jane is still holding onto her arm. Jane is freaked out.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“What the hell were you thinking?” Jane is still so scared. That must mean that she cares about Maura, which must mean that everything is going to be okay.

 

“I…” Maura blinks, stalling for time, trying to decide what she can say, what she can explain. “I got scared.”

 

“I _know_ you’re scared out here, but why’d you leave the house in the first place?” Jane says it like she losing her patience.

 

“No, I – I got scared _in_ the house.”

 

That clearly wasn’t what Jane expected. “Wh—why? What happened?”

 

Jane loosens her grip and slips her hand down Maura’s arm, taking her hand and slipping her fingers between Maura’s.

 

As if in a trance, Maura feels herself tell the truth. “I heard what you were talking about in the living room.”

 

Jane knits her eyebrows. “What? About the Pats? Or, oh, about Frost and Anna?”

 

Maura nods. “About…what classifies as sex.” Jane just looks at her, still quizzical. Maura looks down at the dark sidewalk. “It made me—I just had a flashback and got scared.”

 

Jane’s face changes, melting from confusion into wide-eyed understanding into something that looks, at least in the darkness, like anger.

 

“You told me you didn’t need a rape kit.” She tries to keep her voice from sounding accusatory, but she can’t help it. She’s furious.

 

“I didn’t need a rape kit.” Maura’s voice is soft. She hates saying the word.

 

“We should have charged him with rape, Maura, Jesus! Why the fuck didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

Maura looks up at her, ready to attack back, but sees the tears running down Jane’s face, shining silver in the distant glow from the streetlight. _She must care so much_. Maura tightens her hand in Jane’s. “I think we’ve charged him with enough.”

 

“Maura.”

 

“No, Jane, I…we can prove everything else. Everything – that he took us, the explosives, killing his girlfriend. All of it. He’ll serve life in jail. We don’t need this.” Maura knows this goes against all of Jane’s cop instincts, so she, against her own instincts of self-preservation, goes on. “And we couldn’t prove this.”

 

“Well not without a fucking rape kit.” Jane’s voice is softer now. It’s clearer she’s crying, although Maura still doesn’t know if she’s aware of it herself.

 

“He didn’t…” Maura looks back at the ground, her own voice on the verge of tears. Part of her can’t believe they’re doing this here, on this random piece of sidewalk in the dark. “He didn’t do anything that a rape kit would show.”

 

“That’s why what Frankie and Frost said upset you. What they said about…oh. Oh, fuck.” Maura doesn’t have to look up at Jane to hear her understand it. “About hands.”

 

Maura nods. They both remember that conversation in interrogation the first night.

 

_He said that my hands were sacred. He thought that because I was the last person to touch his dead girlfriend and daughter, I could infuse him with their spirit. He was obsessed with the fact that I’d held their organs in my hands. He—he wanted me to tell him about it. What their hearts felt like, their stomachs. He made me use my hands on him, too._

 

Jane’s heart has sunk deep into her bowels. “He made you use your hands on him.”

 

Jane is sensitive about hands.

 

Maura nods. “And he used his on me, too.”

 

Jane is shaking, with anger and rage and sadness and disgust and fury.

 

“He…I had to…” Maura can’t seem to say it, so she slides into medical accuracy. “I had to orally stimulate him, sometimes, too.”

 

Jane’s voice comes out like a growl. “He’s luck you didn’t bite his dick off.”

 

Maura make a heavy sound that might be a laugh or maybe a sob. “I tried, the first time. But he…he put the belt on her and said if I tried anything he’d use it.”

 

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

 

There is one last thing, one last thing that’s been haunting her so closely. “He liked…he liked to give me a time limit and said if he hadn’t…reached completion…by then he’d detonate her. He’d set a timer for it to detonate and I had to finish so that he had time to go turn it off. And she’d be right there and I made her sing and close her eyes so she wouldn’t know, Jane, I tried to keep it from her, I tried so hard for her—“

 

Neither of them can take another second of it. Jane crushes Maura into her chest and they both cry, holding on as tightly as they can.

 

“I’m so sorry, Maur. I’m so sorry.”

 

Maura doesn’t know if she’s apologizing for yelling, or for what happened, or for not knowing, or for what the boys said in the living room. But she doesn’t really care. Because Jane is here and that must mean that she cares and that must mean that everything is going to be okay.

 

* * *

  

That night, back at Jane’s, tucked up in bed, Jane doesn’t even give Maura a chance to say it.

 

“It’s not your night on the couch. It’s _never_ going to be your night on the couch.” She says it emphatically, like it’s a challenge. Like she’s daring Maura to stay in this bed with her forever.

 

Maura reaches over and, boldly, take’s Jane’s hand in her own. “Goodnight, Jane.”


	10. Chapter 10

Jane is late.

 

Maura has the whole weekend planned. Tonight, after Jane gets home from work, they’re going to watch the Patriots game and pack during the commercials. Tomorrow they’re going to Maura’s house for the first time. Jane is going to spend the whole weekend there with her – they’ll spend the night there for the first time since Maura was taken. They have a list of things to do and what Jane is calling a “troubleshooting guide” from Dr. Riley to help Maura not freak out.

 

On Saturday they’re going to bring Kylie over to meet Bass and play in Maura’s backyard. Maura has a secret fantasy that Tommy and Lydia might move into the house with her, or at least into the guesthouse, so Kylie would be around all the time. It’s not like Maura needs all the space, and if they didn’t have to pay their mortgage they’d have money to save up for Kylie. It’s a long shot, but she’s hoping that getting Ky familiar with the house will be a step in the right direction.

 

On Sunday everyone is going to come over for family dinner. Jane and Maura are going to cook it—although Jane has made it clear they should expect Angela to show up several hours early to actually cook it herself—and it feels like a big step for Maura.

 

Her home, her friends, her family, her…whatever Jane is.

 

They still haven’t talked about it. Maura hates to guess, but she’s pretty sure that they’re both waiting until after Sunday. Until after Maura can physically be in her own home. That feels like a really big healing step, and maybe she’ll be well enough after it that they can talk about it. Maura knows that they’ve both been scared that this is just a trauma attachment – that after she’s better it will fade. After Sunday, she hopes that won’t be an argument they can make anymore. After Sunday, Maura is pretty sure the likelihood of that will be statistically insignificant so and they can start to move forward.

 

It’s set to be a great weekend, a really big deal. But Jane is late.

 

Maura watches as the clock hits 5:30, telling herself that traffic on Fridays is horrible and if Jane wasn’t able to leave until after 5, there is no way she could be home by now.

 

At 5:45 Maura gets out a book.

 

At 6:00 she writes and erases a text to Jane. _Don’t be scared, don’t be clingy, you’re okay_.

 

At 6:15 she sends what she hopes is a casual text. “ _Hey Jane, let me know your ETA for optimal pizza timing.”_

 

At 6:30 she calls Angela, hoping to have a casual conversation, but she doesn’t answer.

 

At 6:45 she calls Jane, but she doesn’t answer.

 

At 7:00 she calls Frankie, but he doesn’t answer.

 

At 7:01 she texts Frost asking if they’re still at work, but he says he left around 2:30 to interview a suspect in a different case, and asks if she wants him to come over and wait with her. She declines.

 

At 7:15 she calls Jane, but she doesn’t answer.

 

At 7:30 she calls Dr. Riley, who talks to her for fifteen minutes and tells her to keep her updated.

 

At 8:00 she starts calling local hospitals.

 

At 8:15, with her heart in her throat, she calls one particular number to make sure James Fleiss has not escaped from pre-trail custody. He has not.

 

At 8:45, when Jane finally walks in the door, Maura is nearly hysterical.

 

“ ** _What the hell is wrong with you!?_** ” Jane hasn’t even fully shut the door behind herself when Maura launches in. “I’ve been worried sick, Jane! You’re **_three and half hours late_** , and you couldn’t even call!? How could you not call, Jane!?” Maura holds her hand to her chest, trying to slow the heart rate that had been steadily creeping up all night. “Do you have any idea what you did to me?”

 

But Jane isn’t even reacting to her. She hasn’t looked up from the floor. She slowly kicks her boots off and leaves them right in front of the door. Her hair is down and falling in front of her face, blocking Maura’s view.

 

“Jane?” Maura’s anger starts to dissolve at Jane’s non-reaction, turning back into worry. “Jane?” Still no response. “Jane!”

 

Maura steps forward, right into Jane’s space, and pushes her hair back behind her ear. “Jane!”

 

Jane is crying.

 

“Jane, honey, what’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?”

 

Jane finally looks up at her, and her face is the saddest, most lost thing Maura has even seen.

 

All she can say is, “Maura.”

 

* * *

 

Maura’s panic is in high gear, but she tries to stay practical. She takes Jane’s light jacket off and tosses it over a chair, subtlety checking for Jane for injuries. She doesn’t notice any, but Jane hasn’t moved enough for her to ascertain much. She tries to guide Jane over to the couch but Jane shakes her off and jerkily goes to the kitchen. Maura watches in terrified fascination as Jane mechanically reaches up to high cabinet, grabs a bottle of whiskey, and takes two long pulls.

 

“Jane?” Maybe it’s how small Maura’s voice sounds, or maybe it’s the whiskey hitting her brain, but Jane finally seems to notice Maura.

 

She turns and, in two quick steps, has pulled Maura into the tightest hug of her life. Maura’s arms come up around her and she tries to give what comfort she can as Jane just clings to her.

 

After a moment Jane starts mumbling something, but it takes Maura a while to realize what she’s saying. “I’m sorry, Maur, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Maur.”

 

Maura rubs her back in a way she remembers liking when Jane’s done it to her, but it doesn’t seem to help. She pulls back, cupping Jane’s face in her hands. “Shh, honey, it’s okay. I was just scared, but it’s okay.”

 

But Jane shakes her head, and Maura realizes Jane isn’t sorry for being late and scaring her. There is something much worse Jane is sorry for.

 

And there is only one thing that could make Jane this upset.

 

Maura’s hands slide down to grip Jane’s arms as tightly as she can. “Is she…is she hurt? Did something happen to her?”

 

Jane shakes her head a little. “No.” Her voice is hoarse. “Nothing happened to her.”

 

“What is it?”

 

Jane squeezes her eyes shut, like if she doesn’t have to see Maura hear this, then it won’t be as bad.

 

“Nothing happened to her. But you can’t see her anymore. Ever.”

 

* * *

 

It takes Maura what seems like forever to understand because those words keep ringing in her head, drowning out what Jane is telling her. They’re both sitting on the kitchen floor, side by side, with their backs against the cabinets. A handle is sticking into Jane’s back but she welcomes the pain. It grounds her. It keeps her from crying more.

 

“Start again from the beginning.” Maura’s voice is dull and detached.

 

So is Jane’s. “They called me to her therapist’s office this afternoon—remember, Emily Stern? They were all there: Tommy, Lydia, Frankie, and my Ma. The short version is that Stern’s not happy with how Kylie’s progressing, and she’s convinced Tommy and Lydia that the problem is you. That Kylie would attach back to them if you weren’t around.”

 

It’s the third time Jane’s told this part, so Maura’s finally able to snap back. “That’s ridiculous, Jane! There is no scientific proof of that!”

 

“I know, Maur.” Her voice is heavier than before. “We fought them for hours. We told them everything, how good she is around you, how much better she’s getting. I even called Dr. Riley, Maura, and had her talk to Dr. Stern. She was furious, Maur, but it didn’t matter. Stern wouldn’t change her mind and Tommy and Lydia were sold.”

 

“They’ve never liked me.” Maura’s voice trembles as her arms wrap tight around her legs, drawn up tight to her chest.

 

“They’re jealous of you,” Jane corrects. “They’re jealous of how she loves you.”

 

“That’s no reason to **_rip_** her from me!”

 

“I told them that. I told them that they were cowards, that keeping you apart just because they were jealous was insane, and that this could really hurt Ky. I told them this isn’t putting her first, it’s putting themselves first. But they didn’t care, they wouldn’t listen.”

 

Maura drops her head onto her knees. She can’t breathe.

 

“Ma and Frankie and I told them we couldn’t support this, that we wouldn’t help them with the mortgage payments or anything anymore, that we couldn’t stand by it. And I really thought that would work, I mean, it’s not like they can afford it themselves, but it didn’t. But maybe if we’re not around, if we don’t help out, they’ll come around eventually. When they realize we’re serious.”

 

“You can’t do that, Jane.” Maura’s voice is tired but measured. She’s a mess of emotions, but, as always, the logic in the situation trumps how she feels. “You can’t punish her even more. You can’t keep her away from the three of you, and you certainly can’t make her homeless. She’ll need you even more than she ever has, Jane. Don’t hurt her too.”

 

“So, what? I’m just supposed to sit back and be okay with this?”

 

Maura shrugs helplessly. “We’re not her parents.”

 

“We should be,” Jane mutters angrily.

 

Maura’s response is fast and sharp. “We **_aren’t_**.”

 

“I know.” Jane takes a long beat. “So what do we do?”

 

Maura inhales deeply, and seems to found some kind of inner peace or calm. “You…you need to call your mother. Go over to her house, talk to her. Figure out how you’re going to talk to them and deal with them without hurting her more.”

 

“What about you?”

 

Maura rises from the floor, somehow still graceful after a long sit on the cold hard laminate. “I’m going to go home.”

 

Jane looks around for a quick moment, wondering wildly if she’s not where she thinks she is. Maura’s been living her for so long, it takes a full minute for her to realize that Maura means her own house, with Bass and the obnoxious neighbor. She sputters as she too stands (much more stiffly), “Wait, Maur, what?”

 

“I’m going to go home, Jane.”

 

“I thought we were going tomorrow. We haven’t packed up, or anything.”

 

“I’m going to go tonight.”

 

“Uh, okay. Lemme just throw some stuff in a bag, okay? Then we can go, and maybe pick up some food on the way?”

 

“No, Jane.” Maura actually holds up a hand to stop her. “I’m going to go myself.”

 

“Maura.” Jane’s voice is dripping with sweetness and sympathy and pity and Maura just **_hates_** it.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jane. I’ll—“ Maura’s voice sticks as she realizes that she won’t be seeing Kylie tomorrow. She swallows. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

 

“Maura, don’t.” This time it’s pleading, but Maura doesn’t let it stop her as she heads out the door.

 

“Goodnight, Jane.”

 

Jane slumps back against the counter, taking another deep swig from the bottle before covering her mouth with her hands and, just for a moment, screaming.

 

* * *

 

Maura doesn’t call on Saturday. Jane calls her in the afternoon after her fifth text goes unanswered. She’s been so worried. Maura was never supposed to spend her first night in that giant house by herself, and Bass isn’t exactly a guard-tortoise. At about ten different times she was so close to getting in her car and going over, but she didn’t have a key and Maura wasn’t answering her texts, and she thought the sound of someone trying to break in, or someone watching from a car outside, was likely to freak Maura out more than anything. So she’d waited.

 

But when Maura finally answers the phone Saturday afternoon she’s brusque and brushes Jane off, telling her that she’ll come by Sunday night after family dinner, which she’s sorry but she can no longer host.

 

It’s the strangest conversation they’ve ever had. Jane’s worried enough that she calls Angela, but Angela advises her to wait it out. Everyone deals with change differently, she reminds Jane, and this may just be Maura’s coping mechanism. She’ll come around soon.

 

So Jane frets and she worries and she sends lots and lots of unanswered texts, but she waits.

 

* * *

 

On Sunday, around 9pm, Maura knocks on Jane’s door.

 

Jane hurries to open it, slipping a little in her socks. She’d stress cleaned so thoroughly this morning that the floors are extra slippery. She yanks the door open, still off-balance, and then trips over herself.

 

She realizes, as she sees Maura, that she’d been expecting her to come back and spend the night again. She hadn’t known she was subconsciously expecting this until she sees Maura’s outfit – tight jeans tucked into menacing tall black boots and a light gray sweater that gives off an “I cost more than your annual salary” vibe, with an intimidating black purse on one shoulder. Her hair is done and she’s wearing more makeup than Jane’s ever seen on her.

 

This is not a casual sleepover outfit. This is a power outfit, and it scares the hell out of Jane. She’s never seen this Maura before. This is rich, powerful, old-money, youngest medical examiner in history, my ancestors came over on the Mayflower, Ice Queen, Maura Isles. This is the woman who kept people at such a distance that she wasn’t reported missing for days. This is someone Jane has never met.

 

“Jane,” she says as she walks in, her voice crisp and professional.

 

Jane codfishes at her for a moment before blinking a couple of times, realizing she’s still holding the door open. She shuts it and follows Maura to the kitchen counter where she’s leaning. “You, um, you didn’t answer my texts.”

 

“I know. I was busy.”

 

“Um, okay.” Jane stills feels like she’s in a dream, one of the ones where she has to take a test but she’s never been to the class before. That sinking, freezing feeling of being underprepared for something so crucial. She’s been living with Maura for three months, but in this moment she’s less prepared than she’s ever been in her life. “Busy with what?”

 

Maura doesn’t answer the question. Instead she takes a deep breath, reaches into her pocket, and places something small down on the counter. She pushes it, almost in slow motion, over to Jane with one long finger. Jane’s heart may actually have stopped.

 

It’s the key to her apartment.

 

“Maura.” Her voice comes out in a squeak. “What are you doing?”

 

“This belongs to you.” Her voice is still steady and professional, but Jane can hear something under it.

 

“No.” Jane pushes it back towards her, hard. “It’s **_yours_**.”

 

Maura shakes her head, and Jane can see her start to crack. “You need to take it back.” She takes a beat, trying to collect herself. “I need you to take it back.”

 

Jane knows the question she should ask is _why_ , but she doesn’t. She doesn’t care why, she can’t listen to why. “No.”

 

Maura swallows and when she speaks again, her voice is back to being clipped and just a little condescending. Distant. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be, Jane.”

 

Jane tightens what she hasn’t realized is already a white-knuckle grip on the counter. “This isn’t happening, Maura. You’re not doing this.”

 

Maura just shakes her head.

 

“Okay,” Jane says, trying to gather herself. “Okay, fine. You don’t want to stay here anymore, I get that. Give me a key to your place, then.” This is an insane demand and Jane knows it, but she can’t stop herself.

 

“Jane.” Maura’s voice is soft and sympathetic and condescending and Jane just **_hates_** it.

 

“Give me a key, then, Maura. You can’t just run away from me, not answer my calls, not see me, not after all this. I won’t let you do that, Maura.”

 

“I’m leaving town, Jane.”

 

“Okay. Where are we going?”

 

Maura shakes her head again. “It’s not…” She swallows. “I’m going myself.”

 

Jane is trying and failing to play it cool. “Okay, what are we talking, like, a long weekend?”

 

Maura takes a beat, then lets out a resolute breath.

 

“Jane, I’m moving.”

 

Jane sort of can’t believe how silent it is in the room. If there were any justice in the world, her life shattering around her should at least make some sort of sound, something loud and dramatic. But instead, it’s just silent for a long time, until, worried Jane didn’t hear her, Maura says it again. “I’m moving.”

 

Jane responds quickly this time. “No.”

 

“I’m leaving tonight.”

  
Another silent crash.

 

Jane finally asks it. “Why?” She hasn’t let go of the counter. She’s not sure how she’s still standing.

 

Maura clenches her hands together. She takes a long moment before she speaks, trying and failing to gather her composure. This was always going to be a losing battle. “Did you—“ She swallows heavily, and the rest of the mask falls away. “Did you really think I could stay here and not see her?”

 

Jane had thought it was bad when it was new-scary-Maura walking out of her life. Now that it’s **_her_** Maura, though, it’s indescribably worse. Jane lets go of the counter and takes an involuntary step towards her. “Maura, please.”

 

Maura matches her step, backing up. “I can’t do it, Jane.” Her voice has a warning in it now. “Don’t ask me to do it.”

 

“Please, we can fix it. Just stay, Maura, we can fix it.” Jane keeps advancing on her, pleading.

 

Maura holds up a hand. “No, we can’t.”

 

“They’ll come around!”  


“They won’t.”

 

“You can’t just leave!” They both hear the unspoken last word. _You can’t just leave **me**_.

 

“You can’t ask me to do that, Jane.” Maura’s voice is shaking now, and thick with tears. Her words come fast. “You can’t ask me to be here, with you, when you get to see her I don’t. You can’t ask me to sit back and hear your stories about her, see your pictures with her, and not get to see her myself. That’s torture, Jane. You can’t ask me to do that.”

 

Somewhere, deep in her gut, Jane knows that Maura’s right. But she can’t give up. “Then you’ll see her. Fuck them, Maur, we’ll sneak her here, or at the park, or something.” She takes a quick step forward and grabs Maura’s hands in both of hers. “We’ll make it work, we will!”

 

But Maura shakes her head, a couple tears coming loose from her lashes. “You know we can’t.” She’s so close to losing it. “You know we can’t.”

 

“Then I won’t see her. We’ll miss her together.”

 

“Never.” Maura’s voice is firm, though they both know she’s seconds away from sobbing. “I would never let you put me before her. She’s going to be so….” Maura lets out a little sob. “She’s going to need you so much. You’re the only one who will put her first.”

 

Jane’s voice is hoarse. “Someone has to put you first, Maura.”

 

Maura shakes her head, crying heavily. “You can’t, Jane. We can’t.”

 

Jane can’t think of another loophole. The feeling of dread solidifies in her gut. “So…what do we do?”

 

Maura has already given her answer. She says it again, more gently this time. “I’m moving.”

 

Jane lets go of her hands and pulls her in, holding onto her for dear life. She says it out loud. “Please don’t leave me.”

 

Maura holds her back, grateful they can’t see each other cry anymore. “I’m going to miss you.”

 

“Please. Don’t go.”

 

There’s nothing else to say. “Jane.”

 

Jane pulls back, looking directly into her eyes. “Maura, I lo—“

 

“—No.” Maura interrupts her before she can say it. “Don’t.”

 

“Maura—“

 

“Don’t.”

 

“I—“ Maura stops her by putting a finger over Jane’s mouth.

 

“—Please.” This time Maura’s the one begging. “Please, don’t say it. I—this will be so much harder if you say it.”

 

Jane shakes her head, dislodging the finger. She _feels_ it, it doesn’t matter if she says it. How could this be worse? “But you **_know_** that I do.”

 

“If you say it,” Maura’s eyes are closed, like if she can’t say Jane say it she won’t hear it, “I just…I’ll just.” A pause. “I just really can’t hear you say it. Please, Jane.” She pauses again, gathering herself. Jane leans forward, resting her forehead on Maura’s, gripping the back of Maura’s neck with both hands. When Maura speaks again, it’s a whisper. “This is already killing me.”

 

Jane whispers too. “What am I supposed to do?”

 

Maura squeezes Jane’s arms. “Just…be who you were, before.”

 

Jane closes her eyes. “I don’t know what that means anymore.”

 

Maura inhales deeply. “Keep being her Auntie Jane. Keep being her hero.”

 

Jane’s voice cracks. “I don’t know that I can do that without you.”

 

“You have to.”

 

Maura pulls in her and holds her, hard, for another long moment. Then she pushes away and, without wiping her face, grabs her purse and walks the few steps to the door.

 

“Maura.” Jane’s voice is broken.

 

Maura pauses, her hand on the doorknob. Her head is bowed, like she’s trying to speak through her tears. After a long moment, she straightens up, nods once, pulls open the door, and walks out.


	11. Chapter 11

Arnie’s been driving overnight buses for almost twenty years. The first couple years were a hard adjustment. It’s grueling, to drive for that long. It wreaks havoc on your internal clock, to drive from 3pm until 8am twice a week. He’s pretty sure it’s illegal, actually, but he doesn’t mind. He’s careful; he’d never endanger the lives of his passengers by falling asleep. He gets a lot of overtime. He likes his job. He likes seeing the countryside, he likes getting people where they need to go safely. He mediates while he drives. It was harder when his kids were young: hard on them, harder on his wife. But now he likes it. Each trip he picks a favorite passenger. Sometimes it’s hard to choose – the college student frantically cramming for an exam, the young family going to see their grandparents, the tired woman who sleeps the entire way. But today it’s any easy choice.

 

She climbs onto the bus first. She’s small, with dyed blonde hair that’s showing a lot of dark roots. She’s got a backpack slung over one shoulder, and he checks behind her for a parent, but doesn’t see one. She politely hands him her ticket.

 

“Are you traveling by yourself?”

 

“Yes.” Her voice is soft and polite. “I’m going to visit my dad’s new place for the first time. My mom, um, couldn’t afford the plane ticket.”

 

He nods, understanding, trying to make her feel comfortable. He certainly knows what it’s like to have to take the bus.

 

She continues. “My mom asked me to ask you to maybe keep an eye on me during the trip? Just to like, make sure no one creepy sits next to me?”

 

His heart melts for her. “Of course I will. What’s your name?”

 

“Sarah.”

 

“Okay, Sarah. Let’s get you set up here.” He rises from the driver’s seat and points to the first row of seats on the opposite side of the bus. “Why don’t you sit here. I’ll put my bag here, so no one takes the seat next to you. That way I’ll be able to see you and no one will be able to talk to you without me knowing about it. Does that sound okay?”

 

Sarah looks at him for a moment, maybe to judge if he’s someone she needs to protect herself from too, so he tries to look as grandfatherly as possible. “I’ve got three daughters,” he adds. “I’d have wanted someone to look after them when they were your age too.”

 

That seems to do it. She nods, thanks him quietly, and sits down.

 

“How far are you going?” He’s expecting her to get off in Pennsylvania, maybe Ohio.

 

“I’m going to Chicago.”

 

* * *

 

Arnie doesn’t get a great sense of her, but he likes her. She does some homework, pulling a slim textbook and one of those huge calculators out of her backpack. She watches a movie on her laptop and naps with earbuds in. He watches her carefully when she goes to the back to use the bathroom, but everyone else on the bus seems well behaved and no one says anything to her.

 

They left New York around 3:15pm, and they stop for the first time around 7:30 in Pennsylvania at a rest stop with a big food court. He asks if he can show her around the food court, and she thanks him with what he thinks is a little bit of relief.

 

When they step off the bus together, he realizes that she’s smaller than he’d thought. “How old are you, Sarah?”

 

“I’m fifteen.” He raises an eyebrow. She is definitely **_not_** fifteen. His daughters were pretty much grown women at fifteen, or at least they looked that way, and this girl is 100% still a child. She must catch the eyebrow, because she gives him a practiced eye roll (which does, actually, make her look older). “I know, I know. I look like I’m twelve. And everyone in my family is tall, so like, adding insult to injury, you know?” She laughs a little, and he laughs along with her. He still doesn’t believe fifteen, but fourteen, sure.

 

He points to the bathrooms and recommends a specific meal for both shortness of line and eatability on the bus. She follows his advice, and, once they’re back on the bus, is one of the only people who doesn’t spill on themselves when he hits a particularly rough pothole. At the exclamations of dismay coming from the behind her, she meets his eyes in the mirror and grins.

 

He doesn’t have a great sense of her, but he _likes_ her.

 

She falls asleep against the window around 11pm, right before the Ohio border. At the stop in Cleveland, she shifts so she’s lying down across both seats, her legs tucked up and her arms folded under her head.

 

At the stop in Toledo he lays his jacket over her, and a crease in her forehead relaxes. She looks so impossibly young. She cannot be even fourteen. He wonders, not for the first time, if she’s in some kind of trouble.

 

She wakes up around 6am for a second rest-stop food court in northeastern Indiana. She gets a breakfast sandwich at McDonalds and a hot chocolate. He buys it for her, and she’s unfailingly polite in thanking him.

 

She spends the last two hours of the trip staring out the window – no book, no music, no computer. If he believes her story, he imagines she’s nervous to see her dad after what seems like a long time away, in this city she’s never been to. If he doesn’t believe it, well. She’s heading to something that’s making her nervous.

 

He wonders if he should call the cops. He decides not to – there aren’t any amber alerts out for someone like her, and all he has is a niggling feeling that she’s younger than fifteen. That’s not really 911-worthy, he decides. But he makes sure to remember everything, just in case he needs to.

 

When he calls out, “Ten minutes, people!” he sees her jolt in her seat. She starts frantically combing her hands through her hair before racing to the back of the bus with her backpack in hand. He smiles to himself. After 15 hours, that bus bathroom is certainly not where he’d want to brush his teeth, but she’s certainly not the first person he’s seen do it. She comes out a few minutes later in a clean shirt and, if he’s not mistaken, maybe a little bit of mascara.

 

It does make her look older. Maybe she **_is_** fourteen.

 

“Is your dad meeting you at the bus stop?” She doesn’t seem to have heard him. “Sarah?” No response. He tries again, louder. “Sarah!” Her head snaps up, belatedly. He wonders if Sarah is her real name. “Is your dad meeting you at the bus stop?”

 

She blushes a little, but tries to hold it in. “Oh. Uh, no. I’m meeting him at work.”

 

“Where does he work?”

 

“The University of Chicago.”

 

“Okay, that’s not too far. How are you getting there?”

 

“I have money for a cab.”

 

This doesn’t sit well with Arnie. Sure, she made it this far, but he doesn’t like the idea of her being one-on-one with some random cab driver for the half hour it’ll take to get from the bus stop to campus at this hour. He also doesn’t like the idea of setting her loose in the city without knowing for sure if she’s okay.

 

“I think you should call your dad to come get you.”

 

She doesn’t seem phased by this. “He’s teaching right now. Plus, he’s the one who told me to take a cab. It’ll be fine. I have the directions and everything.” She waves a paper in the air, and he’s taken aback by how cute it is that she printed out directions to one of the most easy-to-find places in the city.

 

He pulls into the bus stop and actually looks at her, rather than seeing her in the mirror. She’s got a steely look in her eye that reminds him of his wife. He’s never been able to stand up to that look. He sighs. “Okay. Let me help you get a cab though, okay? I know some of the non-creepy drivers.”

 

She smiles at him, and he knows he’s been conned. “That’s awesome, thanks!”

 

He puts her in a cab with Patel, a guy he knows from way back. Patel promises to take good care of her, and Arnie knows he’ll be honest about the price. He has to stifle his urge to hug her goodbye, because he knows that would be weird, so he just smiles in a way that he hopes doesn’t look pained as he holds the cab door open for her. “Have a good visit, okay? And uh…” He shuffles for a moment, and then hands her a piece of paper. “Call if you need anything. I’ll be in town for three days before I drive back.”

 

She looks down at where he’s scrawled his full name and phone number. She holds her hand out the window for him to shake with a big smile, and forcibly reminds him of a young impish Audrey Hepburn. “Thanks, Arnie!”

 

He shakes her hand, steps back, and waves as Patel pulls away. He really hopes she’s fifteen.

 

* * *

 

Patel is chatty, so it takes her a couple minutes after she steps out of the cab to collect her thoughts. She checks her watch. It’s 9:27am. She looks up at the big sign that announces that she’s standing outside of the University of Chicago Medical Building. She sort of can’t believe she made it.

 

Before she loses her confidence, she takes a deep breath, and walks inside.

 

She’s immediately overwhelmed and turned around, and has to ask three people for directions to find the classroom that Dr. Martin’s teaching in. They all look a little confused about why a kid is trying to get there, but she tries to look innocuous as possible. She’s seen a couple reruns of _Doogie Howser_ on TV, and she makes herself smile thinking about what would happen if she told everyone she was a new medical student, running late for class.

 

She finally finds the classroom and she hovers outside the door, uncertain. Every second of this trip was planned and scheduled and crafted, except for this one. She could never decide if she should wait outside for the class to end, or if she should slip in and try to sit in the back. She’s never been in a college classroom, so she doesn’t know what the layout will be like. It worked on _Gilmore Girls_ , she knows that much, when Rory visits Harvard. But what are the odds that’s realistic?

 

It’s the hallway that decides her. It’s more populated than she’d expected, and she’s worried one of the people walking past will stop her and ask her what she’s doing lurking outside a classroom that she clearly doesn’t belong in. She sort of can’t believe the bus driver thought she was fifteen – she’s the smallest person in the 7th grade – but even _he_ wouldn’t think she was medical student.

 

Sending up a silent prayer that no one will notice her coming in, and that this door leads into the **_back_** of the classroom, she eases it open, peaks through the crack, and congratulates herself when she sees back of heads. Score. She sees an open seat right in front of the door and, without any more hesitation, slips through the door and into the chair. The guy nearest looks over at her, but she puts on her best impression of Nevaeh, the meanest girl at her school, and he quickly looks away. _Good to know that even works on college guys._

 

The room is dark. She’d expected a lecture, but it looks like they’re watching a film. It’s really gross. It’s definitely a movie of an autopsy, something she thinks she’s too young to even know **_exists_** , not to mention see done on a gigantic screen. When the guy on screen reaches in and pulls out handfuls of intestines, she’s done. She gets her math book out of her backpack and stares resolutely at it. Might as well get started on next week’s homework – it’s less likely to make her gag.

 

She’s working her way through finding the volume of a cylinder when the film ends. A voice from the front of the room makes her head snap up. “That’s all for today. See you next week.” The lights click on, and everyone around her pours into the aisles and out the doors.

 

She shoves her math back into her bag and hopes she doesn’t pass out or wet herself or something. She doesn’t remember ever being this nervous. She can’t believe she’s actually doing this.

 

She, slowly, and deliberately, walks down to the front of the room. There are a couple people waiting to talk to the professor, and she lurks on the side when she reaches the bottom, hoping no one really notices her. She wishes she weren’t so short – both so she wouldn’t be so recognizable as a kid and so that she could see what’s happening around her.

 

Finally two huge dudes leave, and she has a clear line of sight to the professor.

 

She must make some sound out loud, because Dr. Martin looks over at her too. They look at each other for a long moment. She wonders if everyone can hear how loud her heart is, and a small part of her brain is grateful that they all have some sort of medical training just in case she needs an urgent transplant or something.

 

Dr. Martin is, in a word, beautiful. She looks young for 40, with smooth skin and the kind of swishy hair she’s only seen before in magazines. She’s wearing a blazer and a blue dress that makes it very clear what puberty can do for a person (if they _ever_ go through it), and a pair of heels that raise her up over what is already an intimidating height. It’s definitely her. She looks just like the pictures.

 

Dr. Martin walks over to her, and she gets more sure about needing that transplant because now her heart isn’t beating at all. This is happening. The professor has a look on her face as she approaches: her head is cocked to the side a little bit, and her eyebrows are pulled together.

 

Dr. Martin opens her mouth, and, like in a dream, actually says words right to her. “Can I help you? Are you looking for someone?”

 

If this were one of the Disney channel shows that her friend Peyton likes, she’d fall in a dead faint. Instead, and much worse, she hears herself idiotically say the first thing that pops into her brain. “I didn’t expect you to be so beautiful.” _Classy move, kid_.

 

Dr. Martin’s look of polite confusion deepens. “Excuse me?”

 

She clears her throat and tries again. “I mean…are you…Maura Isles?”

 

The professor starts backwards, hard and fast. Her mouth opens and closes and her forehead wrinkles as her eyes widen in anger and surprise. She stands there for a long beat, shocked and ready to lash out. And then, in an instant, her entire face melts. She brings her hands up in slow motion, one to her heart and one pressing, hard, just below her ribs. Her eyes water. She opens her mouth, and she makes a sound that rips all of the organs out of both of them, just like in that film. She takes a quick hiccupping breath, and tries again. “Kylie?”

 

Kylie nods once, hard and fast, before she loses it.

 

Maura sways and Kylie reaches out to her on instinct. Maura locks eyes with her, and suddenly Kylie is pulled into the tightest hug she can imagine.

 

Something in how Maura smells clicks open a box in the back of Kylie’s brain, and suddenly this is **_real_** in a way that the buses and googling and planning weren’t. She doesn’t even try to keep herself from crying.

 

The couple of students who were still waiting for their turn to ask a question slowly back away, giving each other confused panicked eyes, utterly flabbergasted by the sight of the hardest and coldest professor in the school crying all over some tween and saying, over and over, what sounds like “Tiny girl.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

Maura has no idea how long they stay in the lecture hall. She somehow gathers her things and leads Kylie to her office, shutting the door firmly behind her so no one will bother them or stop by. She grateful, in that moment, for her reputation as a frigid bitch, which will serve better than any lock ever could.

 

She turns away from the door and sees Kylie looking around her office, eyes wide. She watches as Kylie walks over to mask hanging on her wall, reaching up to touch it. “It’s from Ethiopia.”

 

Kylie flings her hand down and spins around, and Maura can’t help but smile at how guilty she looks. “The mask,” she explains. “It was a gift from a woman I knew in Ethiopia.”

 

“Oh. That’s cool.” Maura has no idea what to say to that. Kylie seems desperate for…something, but Maura’s never been good at knowing what people want or need.

 

They just look at each other for long time, until Maura, probably inadvisably, voices her real question. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

 

Kylie flushes, her pale cheeks turning a deep dark pink that Maura doesn’t expect.

 

“I…” She flubs around for a minute, before finding her voice. “I wanted to surprise you.”

 

This seems so insane that Maura takes a mental step back and actually looks at this person. Kylie’s wearing skinny jeans, white keds, and a pale blue boatneck shirt. Her hair is the white blonde that Maura remembers, but now it’s clearly from a bottle. The genetics that Maura always knew would show up eventually display themselves in two inches of dark roots, even though her hair has stayed straight, not like…someone else’s. Maura shuts down that line of thought with practiced ease. She’s still small—closer to four and half feet than five—probably around the 25th percentile for her age, Maura’s brain automatically calculates. She looks both young and old for her age.

 

She’s so beautiful, and the echoes of her young face shine out so clearly. Maura’s fingers twitch at her sides, desperate to reach out and hold on and never let go.

 

“Who…” Maura clears her throat and tries again. “Who’s come with you?” She can’t imagine that either Tommy or Lydia has loosened up enough to escort Kylie on a trip to see her – not to mention on a _surprise_ trip to see her. Maybe Angela or Frankie? The person she never lets herself think about is obviously out of the question. Maura hopes its Angela. She’d love to see Angela again.

 

But Kylie isn’t answering. Instead, she’s positively squirming in a way Maura remembers all too well from years ago. Little Ky made that same face when trying to avoid eating vegetables, or going to bed, or talking to her parents.

 

Maura’s heart sinks as she makes a guess for the first time in years. “Kylie.” She says it like a warning, and Kylie hears it loud and clear.

 

“Um…” She twists her shirt in her hands and she looks so young, it’s like she’s a baby again and Maura’s heart just **_hurts_** in a way she hasn’t let it in so long. “No one?”

 

Maura’s brain moves at lightning speed through the implications, and she thinks she might short-circuit. Only years and years of training keep her rational and logical, and from jumping to conclusions. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

 

Kylie squirms more, looking anywhere but at Maura. “Uh…” Her voice has gone up about an octave. “Define anyone? Cause like, _someone_ knows, but…”

 

Maura cannot fucking believe this. “Does your family know where you are?” Her voice is harder than it should be, and, at the stricken look on Kylie’s face, she wishes she could take it all back. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. She wishes she could just go back to the hugging and crying, but somehow she’s standing in the corner of her office, yelling at the thing she loves most in the entire world.

 

Kylie’s lip trembles, and all she gets out is a choked, “No,” before she starts to cry. She turns around, putting her back to Maura, and that just breaks Maura’s heart.

 

Before she can do anything, she hears a very small voice, thick with tears, say, “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

 

Maura has to sit down. She collapses into the nearest chair and squeezes the armrests as tightly as she can. She’s forgotten what this feels like. This total inability to retreat into herself because someone else needs her. This need to reach inside herself and pull out her heart and just hand it to this girl in front of her. This inability to hurt Kylie, no matter what it does to herself. This push and pull between all of the strongest feelings she’s ever had. She knows, without any form of measurement, that she’s felt more in the last ten minutes than in the last nine years combined. It’s overwhelming and it’s making a wildfire out all of the carefully laid mental pathways in her life.

 

But none of that matters, because she never given anything but a super-human effort when this small girl is concerned.

 

“I am _so happy_ to see you, Kylie.” She swallows, trying not to cry so much that she can’t get it out. “I…It’s a lot to take in. I’m…” She lets out a breath. She doesn’t know how to say any of this. “It’s a lot to take in. But I’m…I’m.” She lets herself get one small sob out. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

 

Kylie’s turned back around, and nods in a way that makes her look older, even with the tear tracks. “I guess, um…I guess it’s kind of big surprise.”

 

Maura’s nod is much weaker. “And I’m – Kylie, where do your parents think you are?”

 

“Um, at school? It’s a Thursday at, like,” she checks her watch, “10am, so, like, in English class?”

 

“How did you get here?”

 

“Uh, I took the bus?” It’s not a question, but her voice goes up at the end, like she’s nervous about how that’s going to go over.

 

She’s right to be nervous. Maura nearly explodes, literally jumping out her chair to her feet. “From BOSTON? **BY YOURSELF**?”

 

“Um, yeah? I mean, I took a train from Boston to New York, and then another bus to here. But like, a nice bus, with wifi and stuff.”

 

Maura pinches the bridge of her nose, doing quick math. “So you’ve been gone for, what? 25, 26 hours?”

 

Kylie shrugs, but Maura knows she’s right.

 

“Did you leave a note?”

 

“Um, I told them I was sleeping over at Peyton’s house last night. So they won’t know I’m gone until like, six or seven tonight.”

 

Maura shudders. There are few people she has more negative feelings about than Tommy and Lydia, but the idea of them coming home to their child missing, _again_ , is unthinkably horrible.

 

“You have to call your parents and tell them where you are.”

 

“No way!”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“They won’t understand!”

 

“Kylie, you are **_missing_**.” Maura uses her most firm and determined voice, the voice that makes everyone around her quake where they stand. “You have to understand what a big deal that is.”

 

“Why?” For one horrible sinking moment, Maura thinks maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she doesn’t remember and has no idea what she survived when she was a child. Maybe she has no idea why being missing would be such a big deal. But then Kylie says, “It’s not like I’m _really_ missing this time,” and Maura can breathe again. Until Kylie adds, in a bitter voice that only a teenager could pull off, “It’s not like they care anyway.”

 

Maura just absolutely, positively, cannot deal with that right now. If ever. She sets that aside, and reengages with this fight. She picks up the handset of her office phone and holds it out in front of her. “Call them.”

 

Kylie genuinely panics. “Please, Maura, please don’t make me. They’ll make me go home and I can’t, I have to see you! Please, you have to let me stay, just for a little while!”

 

Maura simply cannot believe she’s standing here in this office, actually reliving the worst days of her life in Technicolor clarity. She closes her eyes and grits her teeth, dropping the handset back on the desk. “They have to know where you are.”

 

“Can’t we just like, text my Nona or something?” She has this little hopeful look on her face and Maura can’t even look at it.

 

“Kylie.”

 

“Okay, compromise. How about we call my aunt Jane? She can tell them and whatever, but then I won’t have to deal with my actual parents. Cause my dad would just yell, and my mom would just like flip out for hours, and Auntie Jane will just like, handle it. Okay?”

 

Well, that’s much worse.

 

But it honestly makes sense. With a shaking hand, Maura reaches out, takes the phone off the desk, and holds it out again. “Okay. Call her.”

 

Kylie takes the phone, but is still suspiciously squirrely. “Could, um…” She looks down at her foot, wiggling a little on the floor. “Could you maybe do it?”

 

Oh, certainly not. Maura just looks at her blankly. There is no word in any of the languages she speaks that’s an emphatic enough _no_ for this particular situation.

 

But Kylie takes her silence as a good sign. “You guys knew each other, right? You, like, met? You probably remember her, she’s a cop, and, like, tall?”

 

“I remember her,” Maura chokes out. This cannot be happening.

 

“Okay, cool. Great. I can tell you the number.”

 

“Kylie, I’m not going to call her for you.”

 

And then Kylie turns on the puppy eyes, and Maura doesn’t know how, but suddenly she is actually three years old again. All of the memories of that big-eyed look flood Maura – Kylie hungry in the house, Kylie scared in the house, Kylie reaching out in fear from under her big girl bed, Kylie begging for one more story with her arms hooked tightly around Maura’s neck. Maura has never said no to that look, she’s pretty sure she’s physically unable to.

 

And so, with a huge shuddering breath, she takes the phone from Kylie and, with shaking fingers, dials the number from memory, even as Kylie says it out loud.

 

* * *

 

It’s picked up on the first ring. “Rizzoli.”

 

Oh, god. Maura’s knees nearly buckle. She can’t even breathe.

 

She wraps her free arm around herself and bows her head over the phone, trying to protect herself. It’s useless because the voice says, “Hello?” and she’s just shattered.

 

The sound of her voice is even better than Maura remembers. Everything she hasn’t let herself feel in years is sweeping through her, and she has no idea what to say or how to stay afloat. She has a quick flash of how Kylie must feel – being on the knowing side of this type of surprise is terrifying. Maura can hear background sounds on the call, like maybe Jane is walking, and that’s enough to call to mind every image of Jane striding around the city that she’s buried so deeply that she didn’t know were still with her.

 

All she manages to say, in her smallest and most afraid voice, is: “Jane?”

 

All of the background sounds stop. It’s like Jane is frozen, holding her breath. Like maybe she remembers it too.

 

“It…it’s Maura.”

 

The line is thunderously quiet for a long moment. Neither of them breathe. And then, slowly and incredulously, Jane says: “Maura?”

 

Maura swallows, hard, but tries to keep to her mission. “Jane, Kylie is…here.”

 

Another long silence. “Where is here?” Jane’s voice is tightly controlled and Maura clenches her teeth together and grabs tightly to the fabric of her dress at her waist.

 

“Chicago. I’m…we’re in Chicago.” Another long pause. “She came to surprise me, and I…I need someone to know where she is. She…” Maura swallows. How is this happening to her again? “She was afraid to call her parents.”

 

Jane lets out a breath that sounds, at least over the phone, frustrated. “Put her on the phone.”

 

Maura holds out the handset, and Kylie, extremely nervously, takes it. Maura sinks into a chair. She needs a stiff drink.

 

Kylie seems to be getting quite a lecture, because she hasn’t said a word. Honestly, Maura kind of zones out, trying to let her brain process the idea that the small person standing in front of her, glowering at the phone in a fit of pre-teen stubbornness, is actually her Kylie. That the person enshrined in her memory as a precocious cuddly three-year-old baby is now a sneaky twelve-year-old person, capable not only of pronouncing the letter “k” but of taking overnight buses and learning algebra and maybe starting to think about boys. The one thing thudding in Maura’s brain, louder than anything else, is _I missed so much_.

 

Kylie hangs up the phone. “She’s going to talk to my parents, and then she’s gonna come here. And, um, she’s going to try to let them agree for me to stay for a couple days if she’s here too.”

 

Maura’s jaw drops nearly the floor, and Kylie obviously misinterprets it, because she immediately looks like she’s going to cry and tries to backtrack. “I mean, if it’s okay, or if you want? I know I didn’t tell you and it’s been forever and you probably totally forgot about me so if I can’t stay I get it and—“

 

Maura cuts her off by standing and hugging her with as much love as she can. She feels Kylie shudder against her and she’s pretty sure she’s screwed this whole thing up.

 

“I **_never_** forgot about you, Ky. I never stopped loving you.”

 

Kylie makes a little sound at that, and Maura’s insides ache at the idea that Kylie doesn’t know that for sure. That Kylie hasn’t been positive, every day of her life, that Maura loves her.

 

Maura pulls back a little to look her in the eye. “I don’t think I’m doing this very well. I’m…surprised, and I was…scared when you said you came on your own. I was scared of what could have happened to you on the way, and I was scared for your family, and I was scared they would be upset with me. But you… ** _you_** , being here…I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see anyone in my entire life, tiny girl.”

 

And when Kylie leans forward and rests her head on Maura’s chest and whispers, “I never forgot you either,” all Maura can do is curl around her and hold on for as long as she can.

 

* * *

 

Maura has two more classes – one at 11am and one at 1pm, with office hours filling the time in between. She feels horribly guilty, but she’s set a big exam for next week and absolutely can’t cancel. Kylie says she understands, but Maura doesn’t believe her. Kylie declines Maura’s offer to sit in on her 11am class (they’ll be watching that film again), asking instead if she can just sit in Maura’s office.

 

When Maura leaves to go back to the lecture hall, she hesitates in the doorway before gathering her strength, walking briskly back across the room, and dropping a soft kiss on the top of Kylie’s head.

 

“I…I’ll be back soon, okay?” She has an absurd desire to pick her up and spend the teaching hour with Kylie on her hip.

 

Kylie flushes a little and, as Maura’s walking back out, mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, “I love you, Maura.”

 

Maura’s brain is so preoccupied with trying not to cry—she _just_ fixed her makeup—that she barely registers that the grin she gives Kylie is the biggest and brightest it’s been in nine years.

 

* * *

 

She has a small heart attack when she walks back to her office after class and Kylie isn’t there. But after less than a minute of pure panic, Kylie walks in with a huge proud smile, holding two salads from Maura’s favorite place across the street.

 

She holds one out, grinning like an idiot. “I was worried you wouldn’t have time for lunch.”

 

Maura takes it mutely, unsure what to say. She spends so long deciding between “how’d you get so sweet,” and “you don’t have to take care of me,” and “I missed you,” and “never leave my sight again” that she ends up saying nothing at all.

 

Kylie steps in to fill the silence. “I, uh, asked the lady at the front desk if she knows what you like for lunch, and she told me you ask her to get this for you sometimes. I hope it’s okay?”

 

The smile falters a little, and Maura realizes she’s made another mistake. She errs on the side of overcorrecting. “Oh, sweetie, this is amazing. Thank you so much. This was so thoughtful and kind of you.”

 

The smile comes back, bright and beaming.

 

Maura wonders if her aging heart can withstand this girl.

 

* * *

 

There’s a fifteen-minute break between the last office hour appointment and the next lecture, but the big test is so scary that it turns into only a five-minute break, with students braving her wrath to ask just a couple more questions before she finally kicks them all out.

 

Maura takes a couple deep breaths, trying to calm herself down enough to be able to leave Kylie for another hour. She watches from behind her desk as Kylie unfolds herself from the chair she’s been curled up in to stand, stretch, and throw away her lunch container.

 

“I thought you’d be taller.”

 

Maura doesn’t realize she’s said it out loud until Kylie rolls her eyes and gives her a wry smile. “Yeah, me too.”

 

* * *

 

Maura’s last class seems to take forever. She’s distracted, but has cultivated such a reputation of cold brilliance that her students seem to assume that any mistake is purposeful, designed to test them or trip them up. She’s grateful for the leeway, today.

 

The class positively drags by and then, to make things even worse, she’s accosted by several students who couldn’t make it to office hours but have pressing questions. She brushes them off as quickly as possible, sending a silent apology to her dean who will, no doubt, be receiving another set of frustrated emails about her.

 

Normally she would care – she doesn’t have tenure yet – but today there is a tiny girl waiting for her in her office. She walks out of the hall as quickly as she can, her heels clacking on the linoleum floor. She sees a couple of folks look up hopefully as she walks past them, like they need something from her. She puts on her coldest mask, and then nearly ruins it by laughing at how they all try to melt in the scenery without being seen.

 

Sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, her reputation bothers her. Dr. Martin, superbitch of the century. Dr. Martin, friendless, frigid, perfectionist, snob. Sometimes, even though she tries to never think about it, she remembers what it was like for those precious few months of her life when she was loved and cared for, when people jumped up to hug her when she walked into a room. Sometimes she wonders if she should write a paper on frostbite of the heart.

 

But right now, she couldn’t care less. Right now, she enjoys the freedom her bitch persona gives her. She relishes the lack of interruption as she hurries down the long hallway to her office. She doesn’t even pause at the threshold, opening the door and taking two long steps inside before she registers that the person sitting behind her desk isn’t Kylie.

 

Jane stands up, unfolding her impossibly long limbs and shoving her hands in her front pockets. Maura stands, stock still, and takes her in for a long moment. She looks just the same, like the last nine years have only gently brushed her, rather than settling as heavily as they have on Maura. Jane’s still whip thin and, while her hair is currently up in a ponytail, Maura can tell it’s still as wild and curly as before. She looks **_good_**. She’s looking right at Maura with those eyes and that face, and Maura’s never felt so overwhelmed.

 

Her entire body is frozen. She couldn’t breathe or blink if she’d wanted to.

 

Jane is here.

 

Jane is here, in her office, in her city, in her _life_. Today.

 

Then a corner of Jane’s mouth tips up and she raises one eyebrow. “I can still shoot you, you know.”

 

Maura unfreezes, and her lips quirk up too. _God, she remembers_. “I know.”

 

Jane gives a full smile, and _oh, **there’s** your heart_. “How’s Bass?”

 

Maura swallows, ducking her head down for just a moment to try to control her face. She grips the back of chair in front of her, trying to look casual and not like she’s about to faint. “He’s well. Bigger.”

 

“Still interactive?” Jane is holding back a bigger smile and it may be killing Maura but she’d be happy to die like this.

 

“Still interactive.”

 

Jane drops her gaze back down to the desk, and it’s only then that Maura realizes they’ve been making some very intense eye contact. Without looking back up, Jane says, “Good,” softly, and Maura realizes that Jane’s just as lost as she is.

 

For some twisted reason, this boosts Maura’s confidence enough to say, “Jane?”

 

Jane looks up, and Maura smiles softly at her for a long moment.

 

The spell is only broken when a voice pipes up from the corner. “Uh, guys? I’m confused.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

The drive to Maura’s home is…awkward. Maura ushers them out of the building as quickly as she can, and Jane is grateful that Kylie seemed to understand without anyone having to say it that the conversation looming over all of them will be best held somewhere else. When they get to the car, she and Kylie do an uncomfortable dance, both trying to cede the front seat to the other. Kylie keeps saying: “Your legs are longer,” and Jane keeps saying: “I don’t care,” because she can’t say: “I might die if I’m that close to her” or “for the love of god, be a better buffer.” It isn’t until Jane puts her hands on Kylie’s shoulders and physically steers her into the seat that it’s resolved.

  
She wishes Maura hadn’t seen, but of course she has.

 

It’s a little eerie, actually. Every time Jane and Kylie interact, Maura just stands there, completely silently, with her head cocked a little bit to the side, and just looks. Maura herself looks achingly familiar: yes, older, and weary in a different, maybe more permanent way, but still so completely familiar. But, before, Maura never just stood by. She was always reaching for Kylie to give comfort, and then leaning into Jane to receive some. She never held herself separate from them.

 

And now, the distance across the car might as well be an ocean.

 

* * *

 

Jane’s never spent much time in Chicago, so she has no idea where they are when Maura pulls into an underground garage. The garage is nice – even the elevator up to the lobby is nice. The doors to the lobby ding open, and Jane’s nearly blinded by shiny golden marble. Maura leads them confidently over to a desk, and Kylie follows her, but much more slowly. Kylie’s head is on a swivel, looking all around, from the ornate design in the floor, to the mirrored walls, to the elaborate chandeliers hanging from the gilded ceiling. Jane doesn’t know much about Chicago, but this screams _old decadent robber baron wealth_ to her. She can’t decide if she likes it. It’s certainly…a lot.

 

“Jane?” Jane only realizes she’s doing a bit of gawking herself when she hears Maura call her name, and notices that she’s only made it halfway across the lobby. She hurries over, trying not to slip on the slick floor. Maura’s just standing by the desk, silently watching her approach. Jane feels more gangly and self-conscious than she has in years.

 

“He’ll need to see two forms of ID.” Jane’s eyebrows raise, confused. Maura pats the desk, lightly. “It’s a security building.” Jane tears her gaze from Maura and, for the first time, notices the middle-aged man sitting behind the desk, wearing a crisp black suit.

 

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Jane pulls her wallet out of her pocket and hands over her driver’s license before slipping her badge out of her belt and sliding it over as well. He looks at both closely before making photocopies of them and entering her information into the computer.

 

“I know it’s a little tedious,” Maura says softly. Jane shudders at how close they must be standing for her to be using such a soft voice. Even though they’re in a huge mirrored marble lobby less than a foot away from a stranger, it feels so _intimate_. “Especially when I have guests. But the benefits certainly outweigh the inconvenience.”

 

Jane’s eyes go wide. Fucking Maura. Still afraid. Still trying to keep herself safe. Jane’s heart _hurts_.

 

And Maura, who is, of course, watching her, sees it. She shakes her head, just the tiniest bit.

 

“Maura.” Jane says it as softly as she can, and it’s only the second time she’s said that word in years. It’s like her vocal cords are physically connected to her heart, because the shape of the word tugs sharply at her, pricking tears to the corners of her eyes.

 

But Maura sets her face. “I don’t want your pity.” Her voice is still soft, but firmer. Resolute.

 

Jane swallows, hard. She remembers. She understands. She still clears her apartment with her gun every time she enters. She is maybe the one out of a thousand people who could understand. She nods. “Okay.”

 

Maura nods too, and gestures Kylie to come over and give her school ID to the security guard. As he photocopies it, she says something remarkable to him. “Jane and Kylie are to have full access to the apartment, even when I’m not home. If they’re locked out, you have my permission to let them into the unit.”

 

The man nods. “You’ll need to give them the code.”

 

Maura nods, “Of course. Thank you, David.” He hands them both back their IDs, and Maura leads them over to a different set of elevators. She touches a keycard to a scanner, and pushes the button for the 14th floor.

 

“Whoa!” Kylie’s eyes are wide again. “You live on the top floor? Isn’t that like, usually the fanciest floor? We stayed at a hotel once, and we couldn’t even go up to the top, not even to just look around!”

 

As Maura smiles and answers her, Jane realizes that Kylie’s never had cause to know about Maura’s wealth.

 

This is about to get interesting.

 

* * *

 

It’s not that Jane’s surprised that the apartment is nice. She’s surprised by what kind of nice it is. Maura’s old house was beautiful and classy, but still comfortable. She had a couch you could watch football on, and a kitchen that was expensive-looking while still being inviting. Her bed linens always made Jane want to do a running leap and superman onto them.

 

This apartment is different. Jane guesses that the style would be called “modern” by someone who knew the names for styles. It’s all clear glass, and hard edges, and light grays. A whole wall is windows, giving a spectacular view of the city. Jane guesses it must be beautiful in the summer and extremely depressing during the bitter Chicago winters. The light filtering in now is a little weak, sort of watery and winterish; the room is light but with a bit of a somber blue tint.

 

The living area is all open, so from the front door Jane can see a glass coffee table with an upright (very uncomfortable looking) gray couch flanked by intimidating white chairs, all atop a white carpet. The floor all throughout is black wood, polished to a shine like the marble downstairs. The kitchen island is gray slate, and creepily reminds Jane a little of an autopsy table. The cabinet doors are all glass, so Jane can see the white and light gray china inside of them. There’s a large dining room table covered in a white tablecloth with eight high-backed chairs that look plastic but are probably very expensive tucked under it. There’s art on the walls, plus a few sculptures on stands that Jane knows she has no prayer of ever understanding.

 

There is nothing personal in the entire space, and Jane is willing to bet real money that there isn’t anything like that in the bedroom either.

 

Maura’s just said that she doesn’t want her pity, but she has it.

 

If she was aloof and alone before…Jane can’t imagine how lonely she must be now, to have made herself a home like this. A familiar feeling of longing washes through her, but this time the object of it is so fucking close to her. She could, for the first time in nine years, reach out and, without bending any of the laws of physics, grab Maura’s arm and pull her into a hug and rub her back and tell her, again and again, that’s she’s wanted.

 

But she doesn’t. She just stands by the front door and watches, silently, as Kylie freaks out when she discovers the balcony.

 

* * *

 

They all put off the conversation for as long as they can. Maura fusses over hostess duties, offering drinks and snacks at an alarming rate. Kylie gushes over the house, showing none of the socio-economic shame that Jane would’ve had at her age. Jane busies herself by sending a couple texts – one to Frankie, two to her ma, and a couple to Frost and Korsak about the cases she’s just run out on.

 

But finally, the drinks are made and the snacks beautifully arranged, the texts have been sent, and the balcony’s been thoroughly explored. It’s time.

 

“Kylie.” Maura’s voice is soft, loving, and firm. It’s a mixture that Jane’s never quite heard from anyone else. She’s missed it. “Tell me about why you wanted to come here so badly, and why you didn’t tell anyone.”

 

“Um, well…” Kylie plays with her hands. She’s sitting right in the middle of couch, but perched at the edge so her feet can land firmly on the floor. Jane is on her right side on the couch, and Maura, even though Kylie had left space for her, is sitting on one of the intimidating white chairs over to her left. Kylie pulls the ends of sleeves into her fists, over and over, as she talks. “Um, well, I always remembered you, but no one would ever talk about you. And I always knew what had happed, with being kidnapped and everything, but I didn’t really know any details when I was little.”

 

“Do you remember any of it?” Maura’s voice is soft, and Jane can hear a tremble in it that she’s sure Maura meant to hide.

 

“Not really.” Jane sees Maura relax just a little. “I’m not sure what I actually remember and what I’ve just read about, you know? And like, I know I remember you but I don’t know if that’s from after or not. Like, I remember you brushing my hair, and stuff. But nothing specific.”

 

“Do you…” Maura swallows, like she’s afraid to ask it. Jane tries to give her an encouraging nod. “Do you remember him?”

 

“No.” Maura lets out a relieved puff of air. “I remember going to court to testify because I had to get a new dress for it and it was super scratchy and I hated it, and Auntie Jane snuck me a different one right before I had to go in.” Kylie looks over at Jane and grins, so she doesn’t see the way Maura just glows at Jane, only for a second. “But I don’t remember him, really. I get like this scared feeling when I think about him. But I don’t have like a specific memory of him.”

 

“Good.” Maura’s voice is a little distant now. “Good, I’m glad.”

 

“Do you remember him?” It’s such an innocent question, so poorly thought out and childish and hopeful. Jane envies her, a little, for being able to think that way. A part of her wishes Maura would lie, so Kylie could stay this innocent forever.

 

Maura looks like she may be feeling the same way, but she tells the truth. “Yes, sweetheart. I remember him.” She takes a breath. “I remember everything.”

 

Jane remembers everything too. It’s hard to reconcile this woman with the one who cried in her tiny kitchen that first night, who she curled her body around to keep the demons away, who sobbed in her arms on a dark sidewalk outside Angela’s house, who lay on the grass in the sunshine and held her hand. But she remembers that person. She remembers everything.

 

“I didn’t even know like his name or anything, or even really understand who you were until second grade.” Kylie pulls both of them back into the conversation. “I mean, I knew you were involved, but I hadn’t realized you’d been kidnapped with me, I think. I don’t totally remember. But I just knew like, _I was kidnapped when I was little but I came home and was fine, and there was someone named Mo and…_ ” (she looks up a little guiltily at Maura) “… _and I loved her and she isn’t here anymore_. That was like all I knew.”

 

Maura sends her a small, sad little smile. “What happened in second grade?”

 

“We had this substitute teacher in computer class, where we like learned to type and basic internet stuff. And she was teaching us how to use google. And she didn’t know who I was, so she told all of us to google our own names.”

 

“Oh my god.” Maura’s eyes widen and her jaw drops.

 

“I know, right!” Kylie’s grinning. “I found out later there were special notes not to do that in my class, but she didn’t know that. And everyone else was like, oh, there isn’t anything on me. And we were supposed to learn that like only some people come up on google and whatever, but I found all of this stuff on me. And she came over to look at my screen, and was like, oh my god! And she turned my screen off and ended class early, and it was like a whole thing. I had to go talk to the principal and everything so he could apologize to my parents.”

 

“He was probably afraid they’d sue.”

 

“Yeah, or that I’d follow through on my threat to castrate him.” Jane mutters this under her breath, but it’s clear both of them have heard her. Kylie just rolls her eyes, and Maura smiles widely for maybe the first time.

 

“But after that, any time I was at a computer I would google myself and read everything I could. It took a couple years before I was able to do it without the kid restrictions on the search results, but I got the whole story eventually. And I learned that you were there with me, and I learned your whole name. Cause I only remembered that your name was Mo,” (Maura’s hand flies up to her heart) “but this way I finally found out your whole name, and your job.”

 

“She got obsessed with trying to find you.” Jane’s voice catches a little, and she hates herself for it.

 

Maura’s face softens all the way. “Oh, Ky.”

 

“I just wanted to meet you.” Kylie’s eyes are wide, like she’s trying to make up for something. “I just…I just remembered feeling really good and happy when I was with you, and I started getting suspicious when my parents wouldn’t answer my questions about you. So I tried to find you to ask you myself. But I couldn’t figure out where you went. All I knew was that you moved out of Boston. But I couldn’t find anything about what happened to you after, or where you went. So I started just like googling ‘Maura Isles’ all the time, but I still couldn’t find you. So I was, like, stuck.”

 

“Yeah, how _did_ you find her this time?” Jane asked. “Last time you talked to me about it you were stuck.”

 

“Well, like a year ago, I was watching this tv show about witness protection at Peyton’s house, and on it they change people’s last names but keep their first names. And Peyton was like, ‘oh my god what if that’s it.’ But I couldn’t just google ‘Maura,’ cause there were too many. But then I remembered that you had this job that not that many people have. So I saved up my money for like six months to buy this sort of expensive search software, so that I could find everyone in the US named Maura who was a medical examiner. And it took forever to go through each one and try to match up like bio or picture, because I found pictures of you in the news articles so I knew what you looked like. But none of them were you.” Really getting into the story now, Kylie’s let go of her sleeves and is gesturing around as she talks. She looks so much like Jane.

 

“But then, Peyton and I were watching _Bones_ and figured out that sometimes they call people forensic pathologists instead of medical examiners, so I did that whole thing again. And then I found Maura Martin and I thought maybe she was you cause some stuff matched up, but I wasn’t sure, so I set up a google alert and waited, and then like a month ago you presented at a conference and there was a picture, and I could tell it was you!” Kylie’s face is flushed with excitement at her retelling, and she’s been talking faster and louder than Maura’s ever heard her.

 

“So then I saved up again, and Petyon helped me plan the trip, and I bought my tickets, and I planned everything, and then I came!”

 

“How’d you buy the tickets?” Jane’s brow is furrowed; she’s been wondering. “With cash?”

 

“No.” Kylie looks a little guilty. “I snuck Nona’s credit card. You’re always yelling at her to check her charges but she never does so I figured she wouldn’t know. BUT! It wasn’t stealing! I left cash in her wallet for them.”

 

Jane sees Maura hide a smile behind her hand, and tries to hide her own. This kid is the sweetest, when she wants to be.

 

“That is…remarkable, Kylie. I don’t want to sound like I’m applauding you for running away, but I have to admire your commitment to research.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry about being the reason she ran away.” Jane raises an eyebrow and turns pointedly to Kylie. “It’s not like this is the first time.”

 

Kylie has the good grace to flush. “Whatever,” she mutters, back to picking at her sleeves. “It’s not like anyone cares.”

 

“Excuse me?” Maura’s voice is harder than either Rizzoli expected. “What do you mean, it’s not the first time? You’ve run away before?”

 

Kylie shrugs a little, and Jane rolls her eyes at her. Teenagers.

 

“It’s always just been within Boston before, but yeah. The first time was when she was six, and it’s been pretty regular since. Usually it’s just to my house, or my Ma’s, but every once in a while to Peyton’s. And that one time I found you at the fucking bus station, Jesus Christ.”

 

Kylie nods knowingly. “You yelled at me so bad that time.”

 

“You were TEN YEARS OLD and trying to spend the night at South Station! Hell yes I yelled at you!”

 

“Where were you trying to go?” Maura’s leaning forward so far now that Jane starts to worry she’s going to slip right off the edge of the chair.

 

Kylie just shrugs. “They forgot to pick me up after a recital they forgot to come to, so I was just like, screw them. I didn’t really think it through.”

 

“They didn’t forget to come to the recital.” Jane’s tone is rote, like she’s said this many times before.

 

“No, you’re right,” but Maura can tell from Kylie’s biting tone that she doesn’t mean it. “They didn’t forget. They actively _chose_ not to come to my one and only end of year recital, where I had the biggest solo—that I’d been working on for an entire year—to go see TJ’s t-ball practice. Not even a game.” Her voice turns so bitter that even Jane nearly tears up. “It would have been better if they’d forgotten.”

 

Jane reaches over and takes her hand. “Ky.”

 

But Kylie shakes her off. “It’s okay, Auntie Jane. I know you were on a stakeout. I don’t blame YOU for not coming.”

 

There’s nothing either of them can say. They both know who she blames, and they both know they deserve it.

 

“I’m sorry.” Jane’s nearly forgotten Maura is there. Both heads swivel over to her. “Who is TJ?”

 

Kylie rolls her eyes. “My little brother.”

 

Maura’s jaw drops, and she skips straight to the heart of the issue, looking straight at Jane, her tone both disbelieving and serious. “Tommy and Lydia had another child?”

 

But it’s Kylie who answers. “Yup. You know what they say: if your first kid is defective, just go and have another one you’ll like better.”

 

Jane opens her mouth to say something, but Maura beats her to it. “You are NOT defective.” Her face is red and she says it with so much heat she might as well be breathing fire. “How can you even think that?” She suddenly turns to gaze to Jane, and Jane realizes that she is furious, absolutely furious, in a way Jane has never seen. Her voice turns low and deadly. “What the hell have they done to her?”

 

* * *

 

“Maura.” Jane holds up a hand in warning. “I know, okay? I know.” Maura does not seem at all placated by this. “But it’s complicated, okay?”

 

“There is nothing complicated about loving your child, Jane.”

 

“I know! But it’s not that they don’t love her. Because, baby,” she turns to Kylie for a second, “they do love you, so much.” She looks back at Maura, who still looks seconds away from marching down to Boston and slapping Tommy and Lydia across the face. “But it’s been hard. After you left…” Maura’s face gets, if possible, even more murderous. Jane backtracks quickly. “I mean, I’m not blaming you! But after you had to go, it just got harder. Things didn’t go back to the way they were before. Ky didn’t…she didn’t turn back to them like they’d hoped. And she was so mad that you were gone. She…” Jane pauses. She doesn’t know how to not make either of them feel worse. “She was furious for a long time. And even after that anger faded, things didn’t go back to normal with Tommy and Lydia. They’ve…” she struggles for words that feel both true and benign. “They’ve never been close.”

 

Kylie snorts.

 

“Ky, they love you, kid. They just didn’t know how to help you, when you were little, and then you grew up into this strong independent person and they just…” Jane trails off, completely unsure what to say. She knows what she feels and what she’s seen, but she doesn’t know how to phrase it to Kylie.

 

“They don’t like who I am.”

 

“No, Ky.”

 

“They wish I were different.”

 

“They don’t understand you.” Jane hopes that’s enough. “It doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”

 

“Okay, but they like TJ better. You can’t say they don’t.”

 

“TJ is…” Jane searches again. How the hell did this turn into _this_ conversation? “He’s still a baby. He’s simple.”

 

“He’s not a baby. He’s six. And I don’t think they liked me when I was six the way they like him.”

 

“It’s not about liking you, Ky.” Jane can tell she’s fighting a losing battle. Not for the first time, she wants to throttle her stupid brother. “It’s complicated.”

 

“See?” Kylie’s turned to Maura. “Defective.”

 

Maura stands up and moves over to the couch. She takes Kylie’s hands in her own, and looks at her so intently, so seriously. Her face is completely open, and Jane finds herself taken aback by how much love she’s showing. How much strength.

 

“You’re not defective.” Her voice is heavy with emotion, but strong. “What happened to us, even though you don’t remember most of it, it leaves a mark. Think of it like a broken bone. Do you know what happens after a bone is broken?” Kylie shakes her head, seemingly mesmerized by Maura. In this moment, she’s three years old again, and Maura is telling her about Peter Rabbit, or Winnie the Pooh, or the circulatory system, and she can’t possibly look away. It’s always been the secret glue of their relationship: when Maura looks right into her eyes and talks to her, all the terrible things around her fade away. Maura makes her safe. Seeing it again, seeing that it still works after all these years…Jane’s heart grows a few sizes and thuds up against her ribs, straining to get out.

 

Maura keeps going. “After you break a bone, it grows back together, stronger than before. So if the doctor sets the bone, and lines it back up correctly, it’ll work just the way it’s supposed to, but it’ll still show up on x-rays, even seventy years later. It’s changed by the experience of having been broken.”

 

Jane thinks this is a pretty great analogy, but Maura isn’t finished.

 

“But if the doctor doesn’t set it right, or there is no doctor, it’ll grow back stronger but not aligned. It will always be a little bit off. It may not work as well. It may mean that you have to always be careful with it, because the bone itself may be weaker or not able to take your your full weight. And the muscles and tendons and other bones around it have to adapt and work differently to make up for what that bone can’t do as well any more. So even though it knit back together, strong, you’ll always have to be gentle with it, and everything around it will need to work with it how it is, not just pretend it didn’t happen and keep going like they did before it broke.”

 

Jane tries hard to not cry.

 

“What happened to us, Kylie, it broke us a little bit. But we grew back, and we grew strong. Having been broken doesn’t mean you’re defective. It means you survived something that you weren’t meant to survive. And anyone who expected you not to change, anyone who didn’t learn to adapt to accommodate your different shape, they didn’t make the right choice. If they had adapted, if they were like the muscles around a broken bone, they would have eased your burden. They would have made it easier for you. They would have made it so easy that, some of the time, you would forget you’d ever even been broken.”

 

Maura looks away from Kylie then, and right into Jane’s eyes. It’s the first time she’s been vulnerable to Jane, and Jane holds her breath, trying not even to blink. Maura still speaks to Kylie, but doesn’t look away from Jane. “That’s what your Auntie Jane has done for you, Kylie.” Jane hears what she doesn’t say. _That’s what Jane did for me, too_. “She adapted. She grew around you, and held you steady.” Maura takes a breath here, turning her gaze back to Kylie, and Jane can tell that she too is carefully selecting her words. “And if your parents couldn’t do that too, that’s their fault, Kylie. Not yours.”

 

She lets go with one hand and reaches up to gently tuck Kylie’s hair behind her ear. “None of this has even been your fault, sweet girl. None of it.”

 

Kylie’s back is to Jane, but Jane can see her look down and set her jaw a little. She takes a beat, and then straightens her back and looks directly up at Maura. “Then why did you leave me?”

 

* * *

 

Maura’s saved from answering by the tinny sounds of “Hotline Bling” coming from Jane’s pocket. Jane reaches in and quickly silences the phone, but not before the moment has been disrupted. She checks the screen and bites back a curse word. “I have to get this,” she says as apologetically as she can. “It’s your Nona,” she adds to Kylie.

 

Kylie’s eyes widen as Jane answers it. “I wonder if she knows I’m here,” she says softly to Maura, fear of her punishment clouding the urgency of the question she’d just asked.

 

Maura tentatively reaches over and rubs a hand across Kylie’s back. “I guess we’ll find out.” Kylie doesn’t push away, and Maura tries (and fails) not to smile.

 

Jane is trying to get her mother off the phone as quickly as she can, but, as always, Angela is hard to shake. Finally Jane gets around it by handing the phone over to Kylie with a curt, “Your Nona has some words for you.” Kylie cringes but takes the phone.

 

Jane stands up to stretch and Maura stands as well. She inclines her head over to the balcony, and Jane understands that the conversation the two of them are about to have is going to make the last one look downright casual.

 

She follows, trying not to either throw up with nerves or throw her arms around Maura and pull her close, as Maura steps quickly out to the balcony and shuts the sliding glass doors behind them. It’s a little chilly up here, windier than down on the ground. Jane squeezes her hands together and waits for Maura to speak.

 

She doesn’t have to wait long. “What does she know?”

 

It’s the first time they’ve been alone together in nine years. The first chance they’ve had to say anything to each other in privacy. Jane takes a moment and just lets herself look at Maura. She’s still so beautiful. She looks sad, and a little tired – not like she needs more sleep, but like she needs an easier life. But she looks strong. She has grown back strong. She has more lines on her face and the smallest flecks of gray in her hair. She’s wearing a lot of makeup, which is probably covering up a few more marks of her age. Nine years ago, she looked young for her age, closer to twenty-three than to her true twenty-seven. But now that she’s nearing forty, and looks it, she is impossibly beautiful.

 

So when she says, after Jane hasn’t answered her question, “What is it?” it’s all Jane can do to not blurt out the truth. “Sorry,” she says instead. “I was just…” She exhales, hard. “You’re here.”

 

Maura nods a little, and looks like she’s trying not to cry. “So are you.”

 

God, this is so hard. Jane tries to reign herself in. She coughs a little and looks down, shuffling her feet. “Sorry.” She twists her fingers. “You asked me something.”

 

“I asked what she knows. About me. About why I left.”

 

“Pretty much nothing. I didn’t…I don’t know what to tell her, and her parents wouldn’t talk about you. I think they got upset whenever she asked. And it was hard for me too, especially at first. So she doesn’t know anything about why you left. But I tried…” Jane looks right into her eyes again. This is important. “I always tried to make sure that she remembered that you loved her. Not to like, tell her you were forced to go, but to give her the impression that you didn’t want to. That you loved her.”

 

Maura looks touched. “Thank you, Jane. That’s…” she pushes her lips together and swallows heavily. “That’s more than I’d hoped for. Thank you.”

 

Jane nods quickly. She hopes this part is over.

 

But it isn’t.

 

“What…” Maura’s voice is suddenly hoarse. She clears her throat and tries again, setting her shoulders. “What does she know about us?”

 

Jane freezes. She’d hoped for a little more time. “Us?” The word comes out like a croak.

 

“You didn’t…she didn’t seem to know that we were…” Jane holds her breath, completely unsure what word Maura is going to use. “…friends?”

 

Jane blinks a couple times, her chest both swelling and deflating. That word is devastating, even after all this time. “No,” she manages. “No, I didn’t.”

 

“Oh.” Maura seems to sag a little. She wraps her arms around herself, and Jane knows she isn’t protecting herself from just the wind.

 

She tries to offer more. “It just never seemed fair. She was so obsessed with you, with wanting to know you, and I never figured out how to tell her anything without…I, I don’t know.”

 

“Without what, Jane?”

 

Jane takes a breath, and lets herself be vulnerable. She had forgotten this part of being around Maura. The way that Maura doesn’t strip away her defenses, but makes her want to drop them on purpose. The urge she always had to show Maura her truest self. “I didn’t want to betray your trust. What happened between us, you living with me, it was… _private_. It didn’t feel like…like something I should just tell her. Or tell anyone. And I really…I didn’t want to seem selfish.”  
  
“Selfish?”

 

“Right after you left, she was…she took it so hard. And she missed you so much. And I missed you, too.” She doesn’t say the ‘so much,’ but she knows Maura hears it. “But she was a baby, I wasn’t about to be like ‘ _oh me too, I’m sad too, comfort me now_.’ You know? So I just pretended like I wasn’t missing you too, like I hadn’t had a relationship with you too. And then I just…I never stopped, I guess.”

 

“Jane.” The word is so heavy, shouldering the burden of nine years of regrets.

 

Maura unwraps an arm from around her own waist and holds it out, offering it to Jane. Jane takes a breath and then, trembling, reaches her own out and rests it lightly on top of Maura’s.

 

Maura interlaces their fingers and squeezes, hard. “I missed you too, Jane.”


	14. Chapter 14

They walk back in from the balcony. Maura walks behind Jane to hide how much she's shaking.

 

She settles back on her chair as Kylie hands the phone back to Jane.

 

"Scale of one to ten?" Jane asks it with an eyebrow up as she sits.

 

"Well she started at like a nine, but then when I told her I came to see Maura, it went down to like a three! Which was awesome." Kylie turns to Maura. "Auntie Jane and I have a system for ranking how hard everyone in the family yells at each other. Nona's numbers are always, like, five points higher than everyone else's."

 

Maura smiles a little at that. "She was always…animated."

 

"You know my Nona?" Kylie says it quickly, her eyes wide and excited.

 

"I did. Before." Maura doesn't want to talk about it, and she's desperately afraid of what Kylie had asked her. She, hesitantly, holding onto her heart with both hands, steps into the biggest and scariest part of all of this. "Before your Nona called, you asked why I left you." Maura's voice is soft and matter-of-fact. "Do you still want to talk about that?"

 

Kylie nods, her face setting. Bracing herself to be hurt.

 

Maura takes a deep breath and picks her works as carefully as she can. Kylie obviously has a lot of problems with her parents, and Maura doesn't know how to tell this part without making that a hell of a lot worse. "Stop me if you know any of this, alright? After we got home, you had a hard time readjusting. You had gotten very attached to me while we were kidnapped, and you…you struggled to readapt to life at home without me."

 

"I missed you." She asks it like a question, but all three know it's a fact.

 

Maura hesitates. That's not exactly it, but she doesn't know how to say it.

 

Jane saves her (again). "No – I mean, yes, you missed her, but that's not it. Like, when you left camp this year you missed your friends, but you were still happy to see Peyton when you got back, right? Like, you can be happy with someone, and miss someone else." Kylie nods. "But that wasn't what happened. You wanted Maura instead of your parents, at first. So it wasn't like you were happy to see your parents and also missed Maura. It was like, Maura wasn't there, and so, eff your parents. You know?"

 

Kylie nods slowly. "I think so."

 

"And I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled your parents were about that."

 

Maura doesn't think Jane's being entirely fair. "Well, just imagine it, for a moment. Your daughter has been kidnapped, has been missing for almost two weeks. After that amount of time, statistically, you're looking to recover a body." Jane flinches a little bit, and Maura silently chastises herself. She's still not good at talking to children. "And then, like a miracle, your child comes back, safe and sound and whole, just a little afraid. And you missed her so much. You're so happy to see her. And she just pushes you away as hard as she can. You hold her and sing to her and comfort her and all she does is scream for the comfort of someone else. Someone you've never met." Maura takes a long pause before finishing. "That pain must have been…just unimaginable."

 

Kylie looks troubled. She scoots closer to Maura, hovering at the edge of the couch, less than a foot from Maura. "Is that what it was like?"

 

Maura nods, swallowing hard. "You were afraid to be without me. But you couldn't really explain that, and they…" She trails off, looking at Jane. She doesn't know how to say this part.

 

"They tried a lot of things to fix it," Jane supplies, softly. "But the only thing that worked was giving you a lot of time with Maura, and then you stopped screaming but you kept pulling away from them."

 

"We spent a lot of time together, you and I, for a couple of months afterwards. And it was so wonderful, and I was so happy to be with you. I felt…" Maura can't help but look quickly at Jane, who gives something like a nod of permission. Maura relaxes her hold on a barrier she always keeps up, and lets herself actually  _feel_  this. She reaches out to cup Kylie's cheek and doesn't mind that her voice is thick when she speaks. "I loved you so much, Kylie. I was so happy to be with you."

 

Kylie gives her a watery smile.

 

Maura can't say it. She can't even think about it. Not again.

 

Jane saves her. "You were seeing this therapist, and she eventually convinced your parents that if you stopped seeing Maura, you'd bond back with them."

 

Kylie snaps her head around to Jane. "Dr. Miller said that?" She looks aghast.

 

"No, no, this was the person before Dr. Miller. Her name was Dr. Stern. We stopped taking you to her like a year after this. She ghosted on us, and that's when we found Dr. Miller."

 

"She had her license revoked around that time," Maura says mildly. "That may be why she, what did you call it? Ghosted?"

 

"Wait, what?" Jane looks at Maura, agape.

 

"It came to light that she was recommending risky practices to her patients for the good of her publishing career. She was reported to the Massachusetts licensing board and there was an investigation. She ended up surrendering her license and moving out of the country, I believe."

 

Jane's eyebrows are in her hair. "And, of course, you didn't have anything to do with that report?"

 

Maura flushes, but manages to say, "Don't be ridiculous, Jane," in a relatively crisp manner. Both of them know this wasn't an actual answer.

 

"Okay, wait," Kylie pulls them back. "The therapist told my parents that I should stop seeing Maura?" Both adults nod. "That's bullshit!"

 

"Language," Maura says, at the same moment that Jane uses her professional warning voice to say "Ky."

 

Kylie isn't abashed. "That's a really stupid idea."

 

"Yes," Jane says, trying to placate her a little. "Yes, it is. But they were your parents, and it was their decision to make."

 

"So, what? That was it? You just left?"

 

Kylie's looking at Maura, but it's Jane who answers. "She didn't have a choice." Her voice is heavy, and Maura can't look at her.

 

"Did you even say goodbye?"

 

Maura presses her lips together and fails to stop her tears from spilling over. She opens her mouth to speak, but can't. She just shakes her head and tries to pull herself together.

 

"So it was my parents," Kylie says dully. "My parents kept you from me, even when they knew it would hurt me."

 

"They thought it would help you," Jane says softly.

 

"WELL IT DIDN'T." Kylie turns on Jane, her eyes flashing with rage. "Why didn't you TELL me!? All this time, whenever I asked about her? You KNEW all of this, you KNEW I wanted to see her, and you didn't say ANYTHING. Why didn't you DO something?" She's shouting, furious.

 

Before Jane can say anything, Kylie stands, stomps over to the balcony, and throws the door shut behind her.

 

"Jesus Christ." Jane rubs a hand over her face a couple times before looking back at Maura. "Do you…I mean…I'm not sure how much more of this I can do without a beer."

 

* * *

 

Kylie takes a couple minutes out on the balcony. Jane tells Maura, while Maura is shakily pouring them generous helpings of a very nice whiskey, that Kylie's learned to take a couple moments to herself whenever she gets mad.

 

She comes back, as Jane promised, about three minutes later, and while she's still obviously emotional, she looks like she might be done shouting for while.

 

"Okay," Jane says. "I know this is a lot, and there is a lot we all want to know about each other and we have a lot of questions. But Ky, you're the only one who knew this was going to happen today, so you gotta cut me and Maura some slack so we don't get overwhelmed here. How about we go around and everyone gets to ask one question, and then we all decide if we need to take a break or not. Okay?"

 

Kylie looks annoyed, but Maura nearly swoons.

 

"Okay," Kylie says, "but that last one doesn't count as my question."

 

"Oh, it definitely counts," Jane says, rolling her eyes. "It's Maura's turn."

 

Maura nods absently, fingering her glass. She's leaning up against the kitchen counter and Jane is a little distracted by how beautiful she is.

 

"Are you still at BPD?" She says it softly, and looks right into Jane's eyes and even though Kylie is right there, it feels intimate.

 

Jane clears her throat a little, messing with her own glass. "Uh, yeah I am. Homicide."

 

Maura nods. "Still cold cases?"

 

Jane pushes her lips together for just a split second, touched beyond measure that Maura remembers that much. "No, uh, I went back to active cases. Uh, not long after you left, I guess. I uh…" She feels herself saying more than she should. "I kind of wanted to bury myself in work, you know?"

 

Maura nods. "Yes, I think I do."

 

"Uh, my turn, I guess?" Jane scuffs her foot on the floor a little and wills herself not to drop this (very expensive) glass. "Where did you go? After Boston?"

 

"I moved around a lot. I went to France to see my parents for a couple of months, and then I went to Ethiopia with Médecins Sans Frontières for two years. Then I came back to the states and lived in San Francisco for a few years, then one in New York, and I've been here for almost two."

 

"My turn!" Both sets of eyes swing to Kylie. "What's your husband like?"

 

Jane hates herself for her sharp intake of breath, knowing that Maura hears it. She tries to cover it by taking a drink, but she forgets she's holding whiskey, not beer, so she nearly chokes on it.

 

"Are you alright?" Maura is reaching for her, concerned. Jane manages to wave her off, willing the tears in her eyes to chill out. "Um, I don't..." Maura turns her attention back to Kylie. "I don't have a husband."

 

"Really? Oh, I thought that was why you had a different name."

 

"Oh, well. That was an excellent hypothesis, but no. I just changed it. As I was trying to get a job, I didn't like the idea of people looking me up and only finding those news stories. I wanted to make a change, and then after I came back from Ethiopia I had the opportunity to meet my birth mother, whose last name is Martin. I haven't changed my name legally, but since returning to the U.S. I've used Martin professionally."

 

"Oh, okay, that makes sense. Your turn."

 

Maura speaks before she can stop herself, the words falling out of her mouth without her permission. "Are you married?"

 

"No." Is it her imagination, or is Jane's voice huskier than usual? "No, I'm not."

 

"She almost was, to this army guy! I was going to be her maid of honor, I had my dress picked out and everything."

 

That's so sweet that Maura almost forgets to be jealous. She manages to ask her question to Kylie, not to Jane. "What happened?"

 

Kylie grins. "She realized he sucked."

 

"Kylie!"

 

Kylie doesn't even look guilty as she turns back to Jane. "What! I'm just saying what everybody knows."

 

"I'm going to murder you," Jane mumbles, but it doesn't have any heat behind it. She looks up at Maura, a little guiltily. "He did kind of suck."

 

Maura laughs, a loud clear sound that goes right down to Jane's bones.

 

* * *

 

They move back to the couch (with whiskey refills), and the questions start to feel more comfortable and relaxed, until, "So what was the deal with you guys, before?"

 

Jane and Maura look at each other, furiously trying to silently communicate and completely failing.

 

"Uh, what?" Jane manages to ask.

 

"I mean, were you, like, friends? Cause like, Auntie Jane, back at Maura's office, you asked about the turtle right when you got there, so…"

 

Jane has absolutely no idea what to say, but her panic is interrupted by Maura's voice, which is surprisingly cool and collected. "Your Auntie Jane and I were very good friends, before."

 

"Wait, like, you knew each other before I was kidnapped?"

 

"No, not before that. Jane and I met the night we escaped." Maura looks at Jane, and gives her a devious little look. "She tried very hard to shoot me, and then when that didn't work, she became my friend." Her grin fades a little bit into earnestness. "She took very good care of me when I was still pretty scared and upset about what happened to us."

 

"Okay," Jane says, holding up a hand. "I did NOT try to shoot you."

 

"Excuse me?" Maura lifts one eyebrow, and Jane can barely keep up. "The first time I saw you was from behind the barrel of your sidearm!"

 

"I thought you'd kidnapped my niece! It was justified!"

 

"And so I forgave you." Maura smiles at her, and Jane's whole body melts. God, this woman.

 

Maura turns back to Kylie. "After she was convinced I hadn't hurt you, she actually let me stay with her for a while. We spent a lot of time together."

 

Kylie turns to Jane, her face full of suspicion. "So you know where she was this whole time?" She's clearly ready to blow up, but, once again, Maura beats Jane to it.

 

"No, honey. Jane and I haven't kept in touch. We haven't spoken or seen each other since I left Boston."

 

"That's not entirely true." Two sets up eyes snap up to Jane. "I, uh…I came to court the day you testified." Jane looks right at Maura, hoping for forgiveness. "I know you asked me not to, my Ma showed me the letter you sent her, but I wanted to be there for you. In case you…in case it was hard for you." Jane swallows, hard. "I made sure you couldn't see me, but I just…I don't know." She gives Maura a small, sad smile. "I just wanted to be there for you."

 

"Jane." Maura says it softly, almost lovingly, like she can't believe this person in front of her is real. She rubs a hand across her heart, pressing in with a little force. "That's…" She swallows, then lets out a sound that's almost a laugh and looks right at Jane again. "You're an unbelievably sweet person, Jane Rizzoli."

 

Jane shrugs, a little uncomfortable with the conversation and especially uncomfortable for Kylie to be witnessing it. She tries to psych herself up to go in for the hug, but before she can make her muscles move, she's startled by a loud buzz.

 

"Dr. Martin?" A voice comes through the intercom on the wall next to the front door. "Your fiancé is downstairs. Should I let him up?"

 

* * *

 

A million thoughts go through Jane's mind as Maura walks over to the buzzer and tells the security guard to let him upstairs.

 

Jealousy, anger, resentment, hatred, sadness. Fear. A certain smug feeling that she and Ky were given permission to come into the apartment even if Maura weren't there, which her fiancé clearly doesn't seem to have.

 

Of course it's Kylie who speaks first. "You're engaged?!"

 

"Um, yes." Maura is speaking quickly and very awkwardly. She hadn't expected this to come up, especially not today. "Listen, I haven't…he doesn't…" She swallows heavily.

 

Jane isn't a detective for nothing. Her voice is soft and knowing. "He doesn't know what happened to you. He doesn't know about us."

 

Maura sends her a look that's part guilt, part acknowledgement, and maybe a little bit of love that Jane can still read her so well. "No, he doesn't. And I'd like to keep it that way, please."

 

Jane nods before turning to Ky. "You understand?"

 

Kylie waves her hand dismissively, and Jane sees so much of herself in this small person. "Yeah, yeah."

 

Jane pats Kylie on the knee as she hears a knock on the door.  _He doesn't even have a key_ , the smug voice whispers.

 

Maura opens the door, and a very well dressed man struts in, giving her a cursory kiss on the cheek. (The smug voice is immediately silenced). He's wearing what looks like a thousand dollar suit and an equally expensive pair of shoes, topped off by a ridiculously precise haircut. He's good looking in a smarmy old money kind of way, with a strong chin and a sharp nose, and Jane just itches to arrest him for insider trading or tax evasion or child porn or  _something_.

 

Jane doesn't catch the beginning of what he says, but she hears him call Maura "darling" and ask why she hasn't changed clothes yet before he spies them on the couch and comes to a stop. "Oh," he says, sounding displeased. "I didn't realize you were having...company...over." He says "company" like it's a stretch for it to apply to this strange woman and a child, and Jane seethes a little bit.

 

Maura's clearly extremely uncomfortable. "Oh, yes, Scott, this is Jane, and this is Kylie. They're old friends that came to town to surprise me today."

 

Jane's impressed. Maura was never one for lying on the fly. She takes pity, hoping Maura doesn't hyperventilate, and stands up to greet him. He takes the hint and struts over, holding out his hand pompously. "Scott Wellington."

 

"Jane Rizzoli." She gives him her firmest handshake, and the smug voice inside her titters at his little jerk of surprise. "And this is my niece, Kylie." Jane puts her arm around Kylie, and Scott looks like he has no idea how to address a child. He doesn't offer her a handshake. Jane knows Kylie well enough to know that she may struggle to behave in this situation, so she keeps her arm pressing firmly down on Kylie's narrow shoulders. "Like Maura said, we just popped in from out of town, totally unannounced. I hope we haven't ruined any plans?" She stays standing, enjoying that she's his same height.

 

"Yes, Scott, I'm sorry, I should have called. I got caught up. I'm sure we can reschedule for another night?" Maura's voice is sweet and apologetic, and Jane's eyebrows rise at how impressed she is with Maura's combination of polite and completely dismissive.  _He clearly doesn't live here,_  the smug voice says, _if they're rescheduling him coming over_.

 

Scott looks over at Maura, surprised. "Is that really necessary?"

 

"Jane and Kylie are only in town for a few days. We were just about to get dinner and catch up. Maybe you and I can try again over the weekend?"

 

Scott looks quickly between all of them. Maura looks…like Maura. Sweet, guileless, heartstoppingly beautiful. Jane tries her best to look impassive (and tall). Kylie's wearing a shit-eating grin, and Jane's heart sinks a little bit. The kid isn't going to make this easy.

 

"Well then," Scott says, clearly sensing that he's not holding the winning ticket. "Why don't I join you for a drink before your dinner? I'd love to get to know your friends."

 

Jane and Maura both open their mouths, but Kylie beats them to it. "That sounds great, Scott." His eyebrows fly up, clearly used to be called something a little more respectful. Jane has a sneaking suspicion she's doing it on purpose. "I'd  _love_  to get to know you better." Her voice is so calculating; she knows exactly what she's doing. She used to do it to Casey all the time. Jane wants to burrow into the earth.

 

Who raised this hellion?

 

* * *

 

Scott settles down on the chair on the other side of the couch, holding his own glass of whiskey. Maura gets refills for herself and Jane, and a glass of lemonade for Kylie. Jane would have helped her but knows much better than to leave Kylie alone with Scott for even a second.

 

"So," Scott says, clearly the type to control a conversation, even if he's the one with the least to say, "Where are you two in from?"

 

"Boston." Kylie practically chirps it, and Jane wonders how she got so evil.

 

"And what brings you to Chicago?" He seems to have decided that patronizing is the right tone to use with Kylie. It seems to be feeding her evil fire.

 

"Well, Scott, I was running away, and figured Maura was as good a person as any to visit." Her voice is bright and cheerful, and Maura blanches.

 

"Kylie." Jane tries to use her strictest voice, but when Kylie gets like this, she simply cannot be stopped.

 

"You ran away!" Scott is aghast. He leans forward. "That is unacceptable behavior, young lady."

 

Jane wishes she could tell him that he's just making her stronger, like when Thor shoots lightning at Iron Man and it just recharges his suit, but she doesn't want to give Kylie that kind of extra power. She tries to keep her own tone light. "Oh, she knows." She reaches over and pats Kylie's leg, hard. "Don't worry, we've got it handled."

 

"Yeah, my Auntie Jane came to get me. So we're hanging out here with Maura for a couple days before I head back to face my punishment." She positively grins at him. "But it was totally worth it, you know, Scott? Maura's like, totally awesome." She's baiting him, and he falls for it.

 

He turns to Jane and uses the same ridiculously patronizing tone. "You're aware that by letting her stay you're rewarding her poor behavior?"

 

Hook, line, and sinker. Kylie's seen Jane knock people off chairs for using that tone with her. Her eyes glint, ready for the fight.

 

She hasn't reckoned on Maura.

 

"Scott." Her voice is hard and sharp, and all three heads swivel to her. Kylie and Scott's jaws drop at the tone they've never heard from her.

 

Jane can't help but be a little turned on.

 

"It's a family matter. Jane is handling it." Her tone leaves no room for argument, and Scott seems to have enough of a self-preservation instinct to drop the subject.

 

Kylie shoots a look to Jane that speaks magnitudes. It says  _this guy sucks_  and  _you know that too, right_  and  _I thought you were going to attack him_  and  _I can't believe it was Maura_  and  _did you know she was strong like that_  and  _I love her so much_.

 

Jane sends her back a raised eyebrow that she hopes only says  _behave_  but she worries also says  _I love her too_.

 

Scott tries again. "So, Jane, what is it you do in Boston?"

 

Normally Jane would just say she works in law enforcement, and leave it at that, because everyone asks if it's really like CSI and she's pretty sick of it. But she's a mood to impress. "I'm a lead homicide detective with the Boston Police Department."

 

"She was the youngest detective ever promoted to homicide," Kylie pipes up, pride beaming through her evilness. "Not just the youngest woman, but the youngest person period. Plus her conviction record is better than anyone's in the whole county."

 

She's clearly trying to intimidate Scott, but it's Maura who reacts first. "Is it really?" She's a little breathless. "I didn't know that, Jane."

 

Jane shrugs a little, trying not to blush. She's forgotten what it's like when Maura looks at you like that and you know she's proud of you.

 

"And what about you, Kaylie? Where are you in school?"

 

"Kylie," she corrects aggressively, staring him right in the eyes. "I go to St. Mary's."

 

"Ah," Scott says, leaning back in his chair and sipping his whiskey. "I was an Andover man myself."

 

"Isn't that…" Kylie looks over a Jane and wrinkles her nose a little. "Isn't that a boarding school?"

 

"Yeah, out near your grandma's house in Lowell."

 

Kylie turns big eyes back to Scott. "What did you  _do_?" She says it in the same tone you'd use for someone you told you they did a turn at County, both fearful and thrilled. Jane swallows back a laugh.

 

"Excuse me?" Scott clearly doesn't get it.

 

Jane keeps a tight hold on her grin as she turns to Kylie. "Not everyone gets sent away to boarding school for doing something bad, Ky. Some people  _want_  to go there."

 

"Wait, really? Why?"

 

"I went to boarding school." Maura's voice is soft, and, once again, all heads swivel to her.

 

"You did? Really?"

 

"Yes. I started when I was ten years old."

 

"And your parents didn't make you?"

 

Maura smiles at her, and Jane gapes at how Maura has turned evil sadistic Kylie back into sweet baby Ky in a split second. "No, they didn't. I wanted to go. I sent away for the brochure myself."

 

"Why?"

 

"My parents and I weren't particularly close, and I didn't have many friends at school. I thought I might like a new school better."

 

"You weren't close to your parents?" Kylie is practically jumping off the sofa into Maura's lap at the connection, so Jane reaches out and pulls her back.

 

"Later," she whispers to Kylie, who sends her a death glare but drops it, settling back into the couch.

 

* * *

 

Scott stays for nearly an hour, primarily boring them with the details of his work, which no one asked for.

 

Maura finally walks him out, and Jane and Kylie can hear him griping about how hard the dinner reservation for tonight was to get, and how they may not be able to get another for months.

 

Kylie turns to Jane and says, quietly but firmly, "Wow, her taste is even worse than yours."

 

* * *

 

Maura orders pizza for dinner, and Jane's heart nearly stops when she opens the box. Pepperoni on half, mushrooms on half.

 

She looks up at Maura, gaping, and Maura meets her gaze, her own eyes nearly filling with tears.

 

"I remember everything, too."

 

* * *

 

They spend the rest of the night talking. Kylie has a million questions for Maura – not earthshaking scary ones, but general questions. What exactly does she do at work? What was Ethiopia like? Where does she buy her clothes? What was it like being adopted?

 

Jane mostly leans back and listens, watching. It hurts so much, imagining that this could have been happening at least twice a week for the last nine years.

 

And every time Maura looks over Kylie to smile at Jane, she feels so much that she thinks she may just explode.

 

* * *

 

Jane tries to get a hotel room for herself and Kylie, but both Maura and Ky put their feet down. Kylie doesn't want to be away from Maura for a second, and Jane gets that. Maura has a large guest room with a bed that will be more than comfortable for Jane and Kylie to share, Maura says firmly, and it would be ridiculous for them to spend money on a hotel room that will just be less comfortable.

 

Kylie uses her puppy eyes, but in the end it's Maura who says, "Absolutely not," in her crispest voice. She walks over to Jane's bag, pulls the unloaded gun out of it, and hands it to Jane with a smirk and a twinkle in her eye. "You're welcome to clear the room, if you'd like."

 

Jane rolls her eyes and puts the gun back in the bag. She can't stop grinning.

 

* * *

 

After a flurry of being introduced (and re-introduced) to Bass, who has grown a ton and genuinely scares Jane now, Jane and Kylie get settled in the guest room. After brushing her teeth and changing into her pajamas, Kylie walks out and gives Maura a deep long hug.

 

"Goodnight, tiny girl."

 

"Night, Mo."

 

Maura looks up at Jane like her heart is breaking.

 

Kylie walks back into the bedroom. She has deep blue circles under her eyes, and hasn't even protested at going to bed. She must not have slept much on the bus. "You coming in?"

 

Jane pulls her in for a quick kiss on the head. "In a few minutes."

 

"Okay. Goodnight."

 

"Night, imp."

 

Jane closes the door after her and turns to Maura, hands in her pockets, suddenly very aware that they're incredibly alone. "Do you, uh, have any pajamas I can borrow?"

 

* * *

 

Maura leads her into the master bedroom and it's completely surreal. None of the furniture is the same as in Boston, but the idea of Jane Rizzoli being in Maura Isles' bedroom is overwhelming for both of them.

 

"Jane." Maura is fidgeting with a ring on her right hand. "I'm sorry about Scott."

 

Jane can't help but be difficult—Kylie has to get it from somewhere—so she says, "Oh? What about him?"

 

Maura gives her a  _look_ , and Jane feels suitably chastised.

 

"I know he's not really…" Maura looks embarrassed. She fidgets for another moment, before setting her shoulders and looking Jane in the eye. "It's important to me that you know that he isn't a big part of my life."

 

"He's your fiancé," Jane scoffs.

 

"I know. But he's not…he's not important to me."

 

"He's your fiancé." Jane wonders if she's taking crazy pills

 

Maura shrugs a little. "We're not getting married."

 

Jane scratches her nose. "I'm not sure that's what that word means, Maura?"

 

Maura sighs, and sits down on the bed. Jane feels weird looming over her, so she sits too. As soon as her butt hits the comforter, she regrets it. Being this close to Maura on a bed is a terrible, terrible idea.

 

"I've never planned to marry him. I don't…" she lets out a puff of air and says what she means. "I don't love him."

 

"Then why are you engaged to him?" Jane's voice has gone soft, like when she was afraid Maura was going to break. Maura hates it. Maura wishes she could hear it every day.

 

"He's company," she says simply. "Sometimes I don't want to be alone. He's easy, and convenient, and uncomplicated. All he wants is someone with good breeding to parade around to his family every once in a while to show them that he's mature and responsible. Someone to show off at the club at and fancy restaurants."

 

Jane wishes she'd killed him. "Maura."

 

Maura swallows deeply. Jane saying her name, especially like that, might just be the end of her. She tries to gather herself. "A while ago he got upset that I didn't want to see him more than once a week or so. He became convinced that I was going to break up with him, which didn't fit his plans. So I let him propose to me, and I said yes, and I don't actually mean to marry him, but it works for now." She looks down at her hands, and amends softly. "It worked, until now."

 

"I'm sorry, Maura."

 

Maura shakes her head. "Don't be." She looks sideways over at Jane. "Was that person, the one Kylie mentioned…was he important to you?"

 

Jane hears what she's really asking. Did she love him?

 

"No," Jane says softly. "No, it turns out he wasn't."

 

Maura nods softly, and they just sit there, together on her bed, with no shadows looming between them.

 

* * *

 

Maura walks over to a dresser to get Jane those pajamas. She sifts through it for a couple of moments before her hand freezes. She hesitates for a moment, not sure if she can do this. Not sure if she can physically stop her body from doing it.

 

She takes a deep breath, and lets herself, for the first time in years, feel how much she wants this. She grabs the clothes and turns around, wordlessly holding them out to Jane.

 

Jane takes them from her, and is halfway through thanking her when she does a double take. In completely disbelief, she shakes out the folds. She looks for a solid minute at the clothes in her hands: BPD basketball shorts and a faded red shirt that says Red Sox on the front and Rizzoli on the back. Her clothes. She looks up at Maura dumbfounded.

 

Maura shrugs, trying to play off the fact that she's started to cry. She presses her lips together and smiles sadly. She looks so small, with her hands clasped together in front of herself. She shrugs again, just one shoulder. "I just…couldn't let them go." Her voice cracks.

 

Jane has dropped the clothes on the floor and taken the two large steps to Maura, pulling her into the strongest hug she can, before Maura finishes saying, "I couldn't let you go."

 


	15. Chapter 15

The next morning is lovely. Maura takes them out to breakfast, and then, after a quick stop to her office to clear her day, the three of them hit some of the best tourist spots. Kylie is bright and happy and monopolizes nearly all of Maura’s attention, holding her hand most of the day and just basking in her closeness. It doesn’t leave Maura much attention for Jane, but she’s honestly fine with that.

 

Yesterday had been one of the most intense days of Maura’s life. And last night – she doesn’t think it was a _mistake_ , exactly, showing Jane how much she’d pined for her, but it certainly wasn’t something she’d planned to do. All morning she’s been raw and afraid. It’s easier to be with Kylie, to throw herself into showing Kylie how much she’s always loved her.

 

But around 2pm they head back to Maura’s apartment to spend a final couple of hours together before Kylie and Jane leave for the airport, and Kylie morphs into a demon. Over the course of only about twenty minutes Kylie transitions from a sweet, sunny child into a cold, hostile, aloof, disdainful teenager. She snaps at Jane, and even once at Maura. She rolls her eyes at their suggestions, mutters under her breath, and huffs. Jane calls her out on it twice, and that seems to make it much, much worse.

 

“What’s gotten into you?” Jane’s voice is strong and demanding.

 

Kylie is standing in the middle of the apartment, spitting fury. “You can’t make me go back.”

 

* * *

 

Jane takes her out to the balcony. Kylie is seething.

 

“I won’t go back.”

 

Jane sighs, heavily. “You have to, kid. You know that.”

 

“I don’t _want_ to.”

 

“I know.”

 

She bangs her hand down on the railing. “It isn’t FAIR.”

 

This hurts so much. How does she tell Kylie that nothing is fair? That nothing in her short life has _ever_ been fair? “I know.”  
  
“No you don’t!” Kylie’s nearly yelling. “I LOVE her, and she LOVES me. It isn’t FAIR that I have to leave! You don’t understand, and you NEVER will.”

 

And Jane can’t say it, can’t tell her that she understands so well. That she and Maura love each other and have been missing each other, just as long and just as hard. That nothing is ever fair.

 

So she just stands here and hopes that, somehow, the fact that she’s there, that she’s always there, will help.

 

* * *

 

About an hour later, Kylie tries again.

 

“They can’t stop me from seeing you anymore.” Kylie’s face is set and hard, and she looks so much older than her twelve years.

 

Maura shrugs a little, her heart breaking for what feels like the millionth time today. “They’re your parents, Ky.”

 

“No.” Kylie shakes her head. “No, I mean, they can _try_. But they can’t actually stop me.”

 

Jane crosses her arms, set and hard herself. “What the hell does that mean?”

 

Maura wonders, for just a moment, if loving these stubborn women will be the end of her.

 

Kylie’s undaunted. “I have a phone, and a computer, and the whole internet. They can’t keep me from calling.”

 

Jane’s eyebrow is up. “They can take your phone.”

 

Kylie rolls her eyes. “I’ll use Peyton’s. Or call from a school computer.”

 

“They can ground you.”

 

Kylie scoffs – a skill Maura didn’t learn until college. “I’d like to see them try.”

 

Jane takes a step forward, crowding Kylie’s space. She gives her patented Rizzoli, “Really.”

 

She absolutely looms over Kylie, but the girl doesn’t flinch. “I’ll just run away again.”

 

“Excuse me?” Jane gives her a _look_ , and Maura recognizes it from when Jane had thought that she’d kidnapped Kylie. It’s a look that says _I’m packing heat_ and _But_ _I won’t need to use this gun to hurt you_ and _I kind of hope you try something_. Maura had been so deeply traumatized, but the look had still scared her.

 

It seems to have no effect on Kylie.

 

She’s playing off Jane perfectly, going for casual, disinterested, and unflappable. Jane is falling deeper and deeper into bad cop, and Maura can already tell that Kylie’s making the smarter moves here. Kylie speaks slowly and clearly, each word forming perfectly in her mouth. “If they try to keep me away from Maura,” Kylie purses her lips for a moment and raises one eyebrow, like she’s honestly sorry for anyone who tries, “I’ll just run away again. It wasn’t that hard to get here. There’s no reason I couldn’t do it, like, every weekend.”

 

Maura decides it’s time for her to intervene. “Kylie.” Her voice is soft, but both heads swivel toward her. She marvels, for a second, at how much power she has over these two creatures who seem, on their own, to be the most powerful beings she’s ever met. “That’s not safe. Something terrible could have happened to you.”

 

Kylie shrugs. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

 

That was the wrong thing to say. Maura’s blood boils. “I’m not,” she forces out from a clenched jaw.

 

Kylie shrugs again, and Maura loses it.

 

“No,” she says with a sharper voice than Kylie’s ever heard from her. She advances toward Ky, holding out a menacing finger. “I didn’t give up my _life_ for you so that you could just gamble away yours anytime you were upset. I didn’t nearly kill myself to get you away from him so that you could hand yourself to the next person who wanted to hurt you. I didn’t shield you from the truth of what he did so that you could learn it from someone else.” She’s close now, and her finger is shaking, and her whole body is shaking, and her voice is shaking. “I didn’t trade my **_life_** for yours for you to treat it like it’s **_fucking worthless_**.”

 

Kylie is white and pale, trembling. She’s near tears. Maura can barely see her. She’s white hot, seconds from incinerating.

 

“Maura.” Jane’s voice roots her, centers her, takes some of the heat out. She takes a quick step back, away from Kylie. Jane holds out a hand. “Come here.”

 

But Maura shakes her head, the reality of what she’s just done starting to set in. “I need a minute,” she says in a voice that sounds too much like a gasp. She goes quickly to the balcony, but doesn’t close the door behind her, so she can hear Jane say, “I need you to think really hard about what she just said to you.”

 

She hears Jane approach, step out onto the balcony, and close the door behind her. She comes up next to Maura and leans on the railing. “You okay?” Her voice is soft and a little gritty, like that was hard for her to witness.

 

“I’m sorry.” It comes out as a whisper. “I shouldn’t have said that to her.”

 

But Jane shrugs. “I think it’s good that she knows.”

 

* * *

 

Maura apologizes, a lot. Kylie looks shaken for the next half hour or so, but promises Maura she won’t run away like that again. No one misses the fact that she hasn’t promised she won’t run away _at_ _all_ , but at least the safety message seems to have sunk in.

 

The scare seems to have made her more cautious around Maura, but she finally takes a risk and, while they’re sitting in the living room listening to Jane talk to Angela on speakerphone, gets up from her chair and crosses over to the couch. She sits down next to Maura and then, like a much smaller child, curls herself into Maura’s side. Maura cuddles her in immediately, pulling her close and kissing her head.

 

“I’m sorry I scared you, tiny girl.” Maura whispers. “I just love you so much, and I got scared.”

 

Kylie pulls herself in even tighter. “I love you too, Mo.”

 

* * *

 

All too soon, it’s time to leave for the airport. Maura drives. Kylie sits up front again, and she and Maura hold hands almost all the way there. It hurts Jane’s heart.

 

Maura parks and walks them in, waiting while they print boarding passes.

 

They don’t say much as she and Kylie hug goodbye. No one quite knows what to say. They don’t know when they’ll see each other again. They don’t know what the future is going to be like.

 

Maura only lets Jane give her a fleeting one-armed hug, hardly more than just grazing her body, before she pulls away and Jane can tell that she’s just barely keeping it together.

 

“I love you, sweetheart,” Maura says, tucking Kylie’s hair back behind her ear.

 

Kylie nods, her face set. She’s trying not to cry too, and Jane just aches for her. “I love you, too,” she says, nodding.

 

Jane puts her arm around Kylie’s shoulders and, with one last look over her shoulder, leads her away.

 

* * *

 

They’re about halfway through the security rope when Jane realizes she can’t breathe. She has to go back.

 

She thinks fast. “Oh shoot,” she says, patting her pockets in what she hopes is a convincing matter. “I think Maura still has my, uh, ticket. Stay here, okay?” She jogs away before Kylie can say anything, praying that nothing bad happens to the girl in her 30 unchaperoned seconds.

 

Jane trots out of the security line, trying to find the balance between speed and not freaking out the TSA agents. She pops out of the roped section and sees what she’s looking for, about twenty feet away.

 

“Maura!” Maura whirls around, her face instantly concerned.

 

She’s already been crying.

 

Jane doesn’t slow her pace. She runs directly up to Maura and, without pausing, pulls her into a hug. Maura’s body is rigid for a second, but then her arms come up around Jane, strong and warm and firm. She drops her head onto Jane’s shoulder and takes a couple deep shuddering breaths. Jane holds her tightly, one arm wrapped around her lower back and then other hand curling up to cup her head. She flicks her fingers around and down, grasping Maura’s neck under her hair. She feels Maura’s breath catch and the fingers clutching her shoulders twitch.

 

It’s silent for a long moment, before Jane feels the pull of responsibility tug at her. She can’t stay in this hug forever; she just abandoned her niece.

 

“I just,” it’s a whisper against Maura’s hair. “I just need you to know this isn’t a goodbye. Okay? It’s just…” Jane pulls back a little and brings both her hands up to cup Maura’s face. She slides her thumbs over Maura’s cheeks, taking a couple tears with her. She smiles (because Maura is so _impossibly_ beautiful and so impossibly _real_ ), and tries to hold in her own tears. “We’re gonna see you so soon, okay?”

 

Maura lets out a breath that sounds like it might be shaky laugh. Jane’s hands slide down to grip Maura’s biceps (and _god, she’s strong_ ) and Maura grabs Jane by the edges of her jacket. “You’d better,” she says, and it’s both a dare and a plea.

 

* * *

 

A week has gone by, and Maura hasn’t heard from them.

 

She’s going insane.

 

Jane and Kylie left on Friday night. On Sunday she breaks up with Scott. He’s furious and she cannot even make herself try to care. He tells her that she’s bringing shame onto the Wellington name and nothing has ever moved her less. She packs up his belongings to send to him, and there are only seven.

 

He has never been important to her.

 

On Wednesday she calls her mother, but gets sent to voicemail. On Thursday she calls her father and he answers but sounds so busy and disinterested that she hangs up after only seven minutes and twelve seconds. It’s the first time she’s called in over a year.

 

Her mother doesn’t call her back.

 

On Friday morning she texts her birth mother, and she actually responds. They message back and forth a couple of times during the day, until she tells Maura that she’s just arrived at her daughter’s recital and maybe they can talk later. They don’t set a time, and Maura understands that they won’t.

 

At 5:30pm on Friday, Maura finds herself standing in the corner, staring wide-eyed, at her monthly department happy hour for the first time ever. She doesn’t quite know how she got here, but she recognizes the feeling gnawing at her insides as loneliness, and that’s ridiculous because she hasn’t been lonely in years. It’s ridiculous because she’d learned as a child to shut down the feeling anytime it crept up on her. It’s ridiculous because something as basic and raw as loneliness shouldn’t be able to overpower the sophistication and systemization of her brain. But somehow it has, and now she’s here, watching all of these people talk to each other.

 

The graduate students avoid her like the plague, skirting around where she’s standing and sending covert looks over their wine glasses at her. She doesn’t need to hear them to know what they’re saying.

 

Most of her colleagues do the same, albeit less obviously. Her dean comes over and chats for a few moments, but Maura can tell it’s just out of obligation. She relies on her upbringing to be polite and friendly, but makes it clear he doesn’t need to stick around. He doesn’t.

 

It’s Shannon who finally comes over and talks with her. Shannon, one of the older faculty in the department, who had the reputation for being the biggest hardass on campus before Maura arrived and stole her crown in her very first lecture. Shannon, with her steely chin-length hair, intense squint, and poorly fitted suits. Shannon, who takes no crap from anyone, and, Maura suspects but has never been able to prove, actually _sees_ her.

 

Shannon doesn’t start with small talk. She hands Maura a glass of white wine and says, without preamble, “Heard you had a visitor last week.”

 

Maura looks over at her, an eyebrow raised. Shannon isn’t deterred. “Some kid?”

 

Maura purses her lips. Shannon rolls her eyes, just a little. “You’d be an idiot if you thought everyone hadn’t been talking about it all week. And you may be a lot of things, Martin, but you’re not an idiot.”

 

Maura nods a little. “Yes, I – “ She doesn’t know what to say, so she just swallows and cuts the crap herself. “She’s gone, though.”

 

Shannon nods. “Who is she?”

 

Maura shrugs. “It’s…complicated. She’s an old friend, I suppose.”

 

Shannon doesn’t press how a child could be an old friend or why Maura _cried_ , and Maura doesn’t understand why but she’s grateful.

 

“And the woman with her?”

 

Maura looks at her sharply, and Shannon grins. “Yeah, we all talked about that too.”

 

Maura takes a healthy sip of wine. She honestly has no idea how to answer this. “She…she’s…”

 

“An ex?” Shannon asks it softly, like she understands. Like she cares. Like she’s been there. Like she _sees_ Maura.

 

And Maura can’t help herself, because goddammit she’s lonely and it’s been a week and now she has all these _feelings_ and nowhere to hide them. She shrugs again, just one shoulder. “Something like that.”

 

Shannon nods again. “The girl’s her daughter?”

 

Maura isn’t even surprised. Shannon is brilliant, has always been brilliant, and, for Shannon, that brilliance isn’t restricted to the classroom. “Her niece,” she manages to say.

 

Shannon puts a hand on her shoulder. “That’s rough, Martin.” It’s the first time anyone’s touched her, as a friend, in years.

 

Maura nods, just a little. Shannon reaches over, plucks the empty wine glass out of her hand and replaces it with a full one. “Stay for another drink,” she says like she means it. Like Maura isn’t a burden on her.

 

And she does.

 

* * *

 

On Tuesday her office phone rings. She picks up absently without taking her eyes off the article she’s editing. “Martin.”

 

“Hey, uh, Maura.” Her hand tightens on the phone, her eyes freezing on the computer screen even before the voice says, “it’s Jane.”

 

And all Maura can say is, “Jane.”

 

“Can you, uh,” Maura holds her breath. “Can you come to Boston this weekend?”

 

Maura must make some kind of sound, because Jane’s voice gets a little more panicked. “I know it’s short notice and totally crazy, but things have been, uh, _intense_ here, and I think it would be better for everyone if you were here.”

 

Maura’s voice catches. “I…”

 

Jane interrupts her. “Kylie really wants to see you.”

 

Maura swallows down the feeling that rises in her, fierce and unnamed.

 

“And, um, me too.”

 

“What?”

 

“I really want to see you, too.”

 

Maura lets out a breath. She switches immediately into business mode, pressing the button for speakerphone, resting the handset into the cradle, focusing on her computer again, and pulling up google flights without a thought. “When’s a good time for me to arrive?”

 

* * *

 

She arrives at six in the evening on Friday.

 

She was too anxious to work on the plane. It’s only the second time that’s ever happened to her.

 

She steps off the plane and stops in the bathroom to give herself a moment to breathe, to check her hair, to freak out. She thinks it was a gift that Kylie and Jane showed up without notice last time, because she spent hours agonizing over what to pack for this trip, and doing that for a first meeting may have actually killed her.

 

But finally her anxiety slips from one side of the scale to another – from overwhelming fear at seeing them to an overwhelming need to have her hands on them now – so she leaves the bathroom. Her heels click loudly as she walks out toward baggage claim, her suitcase gliding next to her.

 

She gets on the escalator and tries to breathe as deeply as she can. She fails.

 

She fails because she sees Kylie, who is holding a sign that says “Dr. Mo” on it, and her eyes are searching the escalator with a laser focus, and when she sees Maura her entire face lights up and she beams and she’s three years old again and Maura _loves_ her.

 

And she fails because she sees Jane, who has her hands in her front pockets and is standing a few steps back from Kylie, leaning against a pillar, and her eyes are darting between Kylie and the escalator, and when she sees Maura her entire body stills and she just _looks_ at Maura like she’s trying to memorize her, and she’s so long and lean and strong and Maura _loves_ her.

 

Maura steps off the escalator and immediately Kylie is in her arms, and no one cries this time but Maura feels so much that she easily could. And then Kylie pulls back and Jane is there and suddenly she’s in Jane’s arms and she rests her head, just for a second, on Jane’s shoulder, and Jane kisses her right behind her ear and she’s not sure she’s ever felt this good in her life.

 

Then Jane is taking her suitcase out of her hand and Kylie is holding onto her and they’re walking her out of the airport and she’s in Boston again.

 

And, oh, that’s terrifying.


	16. Chapter 16

Traffic leaving the airport is terrible. The plan had been to go to Jane’s apartment for dinner before taking Kylie home, but they spend so long in the car they end up having to take Kylie directly back. But even though it’s bumper to bumper the whole way, the hour and half in the car is completely wonderful.

 

Maura sits in the front seat, and Kylie sits in the middle of the backseat, nearly bouncing with excitement. The traffic is so slow, so frequently stopped, that Jane barely has to look at the road, so it feels like a regular conversation. They don’t just talk about heavy stuff – they talk about Boston and Kylie’s school and how excited Peyton was when she told her that she’d actually found Maura.

 

But after about an hour – when Jane has finally hung up the phone with her mom negotiating Kylie’s curfew and changing their plans, Maura asks about it. “You said things had been intense,” she says. “What does that mean?”

 

Jane makes eye contact with Kylie in the rear view mirror. “You wanna take this one?”

 

Kylie rolls her eyes. “Well, surprise, my parents weren’t happy about what I did.”

 

Jane scoffs.

 

“I got yelled at, for like two hours, and I’m grounded, and whatever, for running away.”

 

“Which you deserve,” Jane interjects.

 

Kylie doesn’t respond to that, so Maura figures that she agrees. “But then I told them I knew about the other stuff, and my mom like, completely flipped out. I had to spend two nights at Nona’s.”

 

Maura twists around, looking into the backseat. “What other stuff?”

 

“That, like, I knew that they were the reason that you left.”

 

Jane makes a sound but doesn’t say anything, and Maura guesses that it hadn’t been quite that simple. Maura looks over at her and Jane shakes her head, just the tiniest amount. Maura gets the message. _Later_.

 

“We wanted you to come because we thought it would be good for Tommy and Lydia to get the chance to meet you again, since Ky and I did. And that maybe we could all talk about this together like adults.”

 

Maura nods. “I can do that.”

 

* * *

 

Kylie is disappointed to be dropped off at home, but Jane tells her very sternly that she has to be on good behavior, because this weekend is going to be hard enough without her missing her curfew and acting out. “If Maura is really this important to you,” Jane lectures into the rearview mirror, “you’ll try your hardest here, okay?”

 

Kylie looks over at Maura, really looking at her, and nods resolutely, her face solemn. “I promise,” she says.

 

Maura’s heart nearly explodes.

 

* * *

 

This, of course, leaves Jane and Maura really and truly alone together for the first time in nine years. The car ride from Kylie’s house to Jane’s apartment is largely silent, both of them tense and nervous. The air between their seats is charged and heavy and dense. Jane taps her fingers on the steering wheel and Maura can feel it on her skin. Jane darts her eyes furtively over to Maura and Maura feels stripped, completely naked.

 

It isn’t until Jane turns around a particular corner that Maura notices anything that isn’t Jane, and her breath catches. “Do you – you live in the same apartment?”

 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Jane looks a little embarrassed. “Just never got around to moving, I guess.”

 

Maura is silent. She hadn’t expected this, to not just be back in Boston but to be back in that same apartment. The one place she ever really felt at home.

 

She wonders, fleetingly, if Jane has the same bed.

 

* * *

 

Jane walks her up to the apartment, insisting on carrying her suitcase. She unlocks the door, and Maura steps into the past. Some things have changed; it looks like a new couch, and the TV is bigger, and there are more photos scattered around – Jane and Kylie in various outfits, playing various sports, accompanied by various other Rizzoli’s. But the overall impression is exactly the same.

 

Maura stands, just inside the door, rocked by wave after wave of feeling. She feels fear, deep abject terror, like she hasn’t felt in years, raw and throbbing. She feels longing, sharp and cutting. Confusion, and want, and hunger – both literal and figurative.

 

She feels love and loved, comfort, and safety, and security. She feels held.

 

It feels, more than returning to the house she grew up in, or coming back to Chicago, or meeting her birth mother, like she’s come home after a long time away.

 

Jane turns back to look at her after setting the suitcase down near the couch. She must see something in Maura’s face, because she walks back over, her own face the very picture of concern.

 

“Maura?”

 

“I’m okay, I’m just,” Maura blinks a couple of times. “I’m just remembering…everything.”

 

Jane nods, because Maura had moved to three different continents to escape the memories but Jane had lived in this apartment, haunted by Maura’s smell and her laugh and her tears, for the last nine years.

 

“Could you just…” Maura twists her fingers together, nervous and afraid, but somehow brave enough to ask. “Could you just hold onto me for a minute?”

 

Jane nearly breaks the sound barrier crossing the two steps to get to her. She wraps her up, holding her as tightly as she can.

 

“I’ve got you,” she whispers, over and over again. “I’m here with you, now.”

 

* * *

 

Jane calls for Chinese food. While she’s on the phone, Maura walks through the apartment, ghosting her fingers over the furniture. She peeks into the bedroom.

 

It’s the same bed. The same bed where Jane held her safe, held her close, held her while she cried and while she, for the first time in her life, laughed until her cheeks hurt.

 

It’s a different shower curtain, but the same shower. It’s the same kitchen, the same small, cramped, little space where Maura had broken down her first and last nights with Jane. It’s a different couch but the same coffee table where they’d eaten pizza and drunk beer and propped their feet up during baseball games. It’s the same carpet and the same paint and the same smell and the same person, standing just behind her, hands reaching halfway toward Maura, not sure if she can—if she’s allowed, if she may—touch her.

 

Maura turns to look at her.

 

“Food’ll be in here in half an hour,” Jane says, her voice a little scratchy.

 

Maura can’t help herself. “Do you want me to get a hotel?” Maura asks it kind of breathlessly, desperately afraid of the answer, but more afraid of not knowing where she stands.

 

But Jane’s answer comes just as quickly and firmly as Maura could want. “No.”

 

But then she swallows a little, dropping her eyes down, clearly second-guessing herself. “I mean, unless you want to.”

 

But Maura’s answer comes just as quickly and firmly as Jane could want. “No.”

 

And Jane looks back up and her and she has this little disbelievingly happy grin on her face, and Maura knows they need to talk about it. Not just this minute, not before they talk more about Kylie, about what’s been happening in Boston – but soon. Soon.

 

Jane fills Maura in on the family updates until the food comes. Her dad has run off and is living with someone Jane’s own age in Florida. Frankie married someone from the old neighborhood named Gloria who Jane really likes, and they have a toddler named James. Tommy and Lydia are still a mess. Tommy still has yet to hold down a job for more than a year, and Lydia has bounced from crappy grocery job to crappy grocery job. TJ is a sweet kid, a simple little boy who likes baseball and trucks and is probably the most easygoing child Jane has ever met. Angela works in the police station café and she and Jane are maybe too close.

 

Maura tells Jane about meeting her birth mother, although there isn’t much to tell. Jane holds her hand the entire time and looks at her with that look she has sometimes, the one that makes it seem like love is just radiating out of her face, and they both might explode from the force of it.

 

After the food comes—which Maura insists on paying for, and Jane is so distracted by watching _Maura_ in her _home_ that she lets her—Maura asks Jane to fill her in.

 

“What really happened with Kylie?”

 

Jane groans a little. “Maur, it was so bad. Ky just…stopped pulling her punches. She went at her parents so hard. It was awful.”

 

Maura delicately takes a piece of chicken in her chopsticks. “What did she say?”

 

“Well, for _starters_ , she told them that she hated them. She said she wished that my mom and I were her parents, and that she wished you’d taken her with you when you left Boston.”

 

Maura drops the chicken, chopsticks dangling limply in her fingers. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

 

“Nope, and it gets worse. She literally told them they were terrible parents who always cared more about their own feelings than hers, even when she was a baby.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“I mean, she’s not wrong.” Jane raises her eyebrows to Maura, daring her to disagree, and Maura inclines her head in resigned agreement. Kylie _certainly_ wasn’t wrong. “But, yeah, it was really bad. Lydia was screaming at her, Tommy was yelling at both of them, and my Ma and I were just trying to keep everyone calm. It was a mess.”

 

Maura furrows her eyebrows. “She said she stayed with your mother?”

 

“Yeah, Lydia kicked her out for a minute.” Jane rolls her eyes. “Which, like, was probably for the best because everyone was so mad, but, not really the way to show your runaway kid that you missed them and want them home with you, you know?”

 

Maura lets out a breath, somewhere between and huff and a sigh.

 

“But we were able to talk her down over a couple of days, so Ky’s back at home now. She’d rather stay with my Ma or at my place, but that’s just not an option.”

 

“They’re her parents,” Maura says softly.

 

“Yeah.” Jane’s voice is sad. “But now that she’s older, she has school and sports and stuff, she really doesn’t spend much time at home. My Ma has her after school, and at least half the time she eats with Ma before she goes home, and on weekends she does activities and sleeps over at Peyton’s and hangs with me and Frankie. She probably honestly sees her parents less than any of the rest of us.”

 

Maura must make some sort of face, because Jane backtracks quickly. “I mean, not that I’m saying that’s good, or anything. But it’s just…I don’t know. How it is.”

 

Maura nods softly. She takes a moment before she says, softly, “I didn’t see my parents very much either.”

 

Jane scoots her chair so that she’s right next to Maura, reaching over and taking her hand. She speaks slowly and carefully, trying to make sure that Maura really hears her. “That’s their loss, Maura.” Jane swallows heavily, taking a beat. “Anyone who doesn’t want to be around you every second…is an idiot, Maur.”

 

Maura wills herself not to cry. She keeps her hold on Jane’s hand and leans into her body, resting her head on Jane’s shoulder. “She’s lucky to have you,” she whispers. But they both know what she means.

 

* * *

 

Getting ready for bed is surreal. Maura brushes her teeth and changes in the bathroom just like she used to.

 

She pads softly, hesitantly, into the bedroom. She’s wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt (and is still wearing her bra because she’s _nervous_ and it feels a little bit like armor) but she still feels incredibly naked.

 

Jane is standing on the side of the bed, uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot. She’s in shorts and Maura can’t stop noticing how goddamned long her legs are.

 

“Are we…” Maura clears her throat, her voice tiny and afraid and skittish. “Are we…” She tries to blink back the tears that she hates herself for. “Are we having a sleepover, or…?” She can’t finish it, can’t say _or is it my turn for the couch_ because her heart hurts and she needs Jane and tonight has been so _much_ and she’s just one small person.

 

But Jane remembers, and Jane can tell, and Jane is overwhelmed too but has always been better at handling it. So she just walks over, not quickly—she’s careful not to startle Maura, not to make her skittish, not to spook her, just like she’s always been—and, impossibly slowly, takes Maura in her arms.

 

“No, baby,” she says, her voice just a rasp. “It’s not your turn for the couch.”

 

And Maura lets out a shuddering breath and lets her neck relax and drops the weight of her head onto Jane. And Jane is kissing her head, her ear, her cheek, and holding onto the back of her neck, and Jane called her _baby_ and she’s never done that before, and Maura is so afraid and so raw and so open and so in love, and she’s never felt so much at home.

 

* * *

 

The morning is quiet. They’re both afraid of what is going to happen. They stop on their way to Tommy and Lydia’s house to pick up coffee and breakfast for everyone, assuming that bringing gifts and caffeine probably can’t hurt.

 

It’s a different house than nine years ago. A little bigger, a little less run down. Jane pulls up in front, and lets Maura take all the time she needs before getting out of the car.

 

“I’m right here,” Jane says softly, startling Maura out of her own head. “I’m right here.”

 

Maura looks over at her, really looks at her, and can’t help but smile. Her stomach is in knots, she’s more nervous to walk into this house than she was to walk into a terrorist camp in Ethiopia to help a woman give birth, but Jane is so beautiful and strong and smart and prescient and is right here in this car with her—so she can’t help herself.

 

She smiles, and she nods, and she opens the door and steps out of the car.

 

They walk up to the front door, not quite holding hands but not exactly _not_ holding hands, and the door opens before they reach it.

 

Angela steps out, pulling the door closed behind her. She looks the same – more wrinkles, more grey, a little plumper, but the same. She beams at Maura, just beams at her, and takes two quick steps towards her before suddenly stopping herself, teetering on her toes like she’s hit an invisible wall.

 

She’s still beaming, but also looks like she might cry. “Can I…can I touch you, Maura honey?”

 

And Maura remembers the first time they met, Jane throwing out an arm and saying “no touching” and her heart both swells and breaks that this woman, this mother, this wonderful sweet overbearing person remembers. She nods as quickly as she can, and then she’s engulfed in Angela.

 

Maura hasn’t been hugged like this in nine years. She manages not to cry only through iron willpower. Angela _does_ cry, pulling back to cup Maura’ face between her hands. “My beautiful girl,” she says, “back with us at last. We missed you, honey.”

 

And Angela pulls her back in and Maura just gives into it, lets herself feel it, and cries, just a little bit.

 

After a long moment, Angela leads them inside, straight to the living room. Everyone is in there, waiting. Tommy and Lydia are sitting on the main couch, a faded grey and red stripped thing with some of the stuffing popping out of the stitching. They look older, Lydia especially. She’d always looked so painfully young before, but the nine years have aged her significantly, and not particularly gracefully. She has a bit of a haggard look to her now—before she often looked harried, but this seems more permanent. The years have been lighter on Tommy – he has a couple grey hairs and some more lines on his face, and he’s less trim, but he looks fundamentally the same.

 

There’s a little boy sitting on the carpet near them that is Tommy in miniature, who must be TJ. And Kylie is sitting perched on the edge of a folding chair in front of the TV. She manages, with what looks like great effort, not to launch herself across the room when they walk in. She walks quickly over to them and gives both Jane and Maura hugs, but she doesn’t linger.

 

Maura’s impressed, and more than a little worried at what a manipulative mastermind this girl is.

 

Tommy and Lydia don’t get up to greet her. Maura tries to smooth it over, saying hello and asking how they are, but it’s so painfully awkward and uncomfortable that Jane just shoos her over to the second, smaller couch – a blue plaid loveseat that Maura remembers from Angela’s old house – and sits them down.

 

It’s TJ who breaks the ice. “You’re Maura?” He asks, tilting his head up from his position on the floor. Maura nods. “You’re here to take Kylie away?”

 

There’s a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the room. Maura speaks as quickly as she can, trying to push down her fury. “No, honey, I’m not here to take Kylie away. No one is going to take Kylie away. I’m just her friend.”

 

TJ narrows his eyes at her, but doesn’t say anything else, turning back to his legos with a focused look on his face.

 

* * *

 

It’s not a great start, and it doesn’t really get better from there.

 

Tommy and Lydia are clearly just going through the motions. Maura had expected anger and resentment and maybe hatred – something, anything, passionate. But instead they’re just…blank.

 

It feels like they’ve given up. On Kylie, on Maura, on this diplomatic summit, on everything.

 

They don’t say much as Kylie gives an impassioned, and clearly rehearsed, speech about how she wants Maura in her life. Angela and Jane talk too, but sometimes it barely seems like Kylie’s parents are even paying attention.

 

Maura had been prepared for them to fight, to have to fight back herself. She wasn’t prepared for this.

 

And, it seems, neither was anyone else. Jane and Angela are exchanging confused looks, and Kylie is getting more and more sullen. Only TJ seems unaffected.

 

The mood is finally broken when Frankie and his family arrive. He gives Maura a huge hug, which, in context, is extremely awkward, and introduces her to Gina and their little boy. Frankie looks great. Marriage and fatherhood clearly agree with him – his eyes are clear and he’s so proud to show off his family. Maura, despite herself, grins at him.

 

Angela, from her position in the single armchair, sees Frankie looking around for seats, and not finding any. “Gina,” Angela says, “would you mind taking the kids to play in one of the bedrooms for a bit?”

 

It’s not subtle, everyone knows what she’s doing, but this has been going so terribly that Maura thinks that may not be a bad thing. Gina nods quickly, her curly hair bobbing up and down, and reaches a hand out to TJ as she smoothly sweeps James up onto her hip. “Come on, buddy, let’s show James all your blocks in your room.” The three of them move off, but Angela’s voice stops them. “You too, Kylie.”

 

Maura expects nuclear war, and, if the way Jane’s body tenses and stills beside her is any indication, Jane does too. But Angela clearly has some grandmother powers over Kylie that no one else does, because Kylie sulks and stomps and huffs, but she goes.

 

It’s Jane who speaks first. “T, Lydia. Look. Maura’s back in Kylie’s life – I know you’re not happy about it but we can’t change what happened this month. It’s fact, it happened. So, talk to us. Tell us what you want.”

 

“I want my rules to be followed,” Lydia snaps. “I want you all to stop _undermining_ me.”

 

“Lyd,” Tommy sighs, his voice exhausted, like this is the millionth time they’ve had this argument.

 

Maura decides it’s time for her to speak her piece. “I’m prepared to go along with your wishes, Lydia, like I always have.”

 

There’s a little sound of disbelief from the couch, and Maura gets fiery, and a little defensive. “I _never_ went against your rules – I saw her when you said I could, and I moved away rather than tempt her or myself to go against your final decision, at great personal cost to myself.”

 

The couch is silent. Maura takes a breath and continues. “And as I said, I’m prepared to continue following your wishes, but…I think she’s at the age where we have to take her wishes into account as well. She’s told me that she’s committed to continue seeing me and talking to me. And I’ve told her, and Jane has told her, that she needs to follow your rules and that she absolutely cannot run away again but…” Maura gives a little shrug. “She took a bus halfway across the country to see me. It seems pretty clear to me that there is nothing any of us can realistically do to stop her from doing something she really wants.” She takes a breath, and then says it. “It’s ultimately your decision, but I’d rather that she talked to me and saw me in a safe and planned and supervised way in the future, because the alternative isn’t that she won’t see me. It’s that she’ll put her life in danger to do so again.”

 

It’s quiet in the room for a long moment.

 

It’s Lydia who speaks. “She’s my daughter,” she says, her voice unreadable.

 

“I know.” Maura’s voice is soft.

 

* * *

 

They decide to take a break, and meet back up to talk more over dinner. Jane and Maura don’t talk much in the car. Maura doesn’t even notice that Jane hasn’t driven them back to her apartment until she’s pulling into the parking lot of a park. Maura recognizes it – she remembers everything – as the place they used to take Kylie to play.

 

Jane gets out of the car, and, somewhat robotically, Maura does too. She finds herself holding Jane’s hand as they start aimlessly walking, and it’s the only thing that roots her to reality.

 

They walk for a while, before stopping and sitting on a bench in front of a little pond.

 

“What happens if they say no?” Maura doesn’t look at Jane as she asks. She’s sitting still, one ankle demurely crossed over the other, hands folded in her lap.

 

She hears, rather than sees, Jane let out a puff of air. “I don’t know.” Her voice is heavy, tired. “I don’t know.”

 

“I don’t…” Maura squeezes her eyes shut, tightly. “I can wait for her, if I have to. She’ll be eighteen in six years, I can wait for her.” Jane makes a little sound, but Maura has to say her next piece. It’s been eating at her, slowly gnawing at her insides, for nine years, and it’s been screaming at her for two weeks. She has to say it, now.

 

Her voice cracks, but, for the first time in nine years, she talks about it. “But I don’t know if I can wait any longer for you.”

 

Jane makes another sound, this one of surprise.

 

Maura’s eyes are still closed, she’s still facing out toward the pond. She’s leaning forward, forearms resting on her thighs, hands clasping each other as tightly as they can. “I…I know we’ve never talked about this, but we…” She swallows. “I have to, now.”

 

She takes a beat, and Jane seems like she might be holding her breath.

 

“Before…when I knew you before, I…I felt something, for you. And we didn’t talk about it, but it wasn’t just friendship and it wasn’t just circumstance and it wasn’t just gratitude. And then I had to leave and I—“ She gasps a little bit, her breath catching as she starts to cry. She doesn’t move to wipe her tears. She just keeps going; all she can do is keep going. “And I thought I’d gotten over my feelings for you, I thought I’d stopped having feelings for you, but I hadn’t. I saw you in my office and I just—“ She lets out a watery chuckle. “I just…hadn’t. And I just…I still have them, these feelings, and they’re so – _strong_ – and I know we’re different people now, I know that, I know I’ve changed, but I…” She squeezes her hands together even harder, her knuckles and fingers turning white, her rings digging into her.

 

The words start pouring out of her in rush, tumbling out of her mouth before they’ve even passed through her brain. “I want to _be_ with you, Jane, I _want_ _you_. And I don’t want to wait six more years to be with you, I don’t want to wait six more _minutes_ , Jane, and being with you hurts, but being away from you,” she shakes her head, “I can’t. And if you don’t want—I get it, I understand, I’m different, I’ve changed, I’m worse, and maybe you didn’t feel it before as strongly as I did, but I think you felt _something_ , and—“

 

Jane finally moves, reaching out and putting a hard firmly on top of Maura’s clasped ones. Maura stills immediately.

 

“Maura,” Jane says, her voice hoarse and thick.

 

Maura lets out a breath and, impossibly slowly, turns her head to look at Jane.

 

Jane is crying too.

 

“I—I want you too,” Jane says. Maura wonders if she’s hallucinating. “I never stopped having feelings for you, Maura.” Maura feels like she might float away, or possibly throw up. “I don’t want to wait another minute for you, either.” Jane’s eyes fill with tears again, and Maura wonders if this could possibly be real.

 

Jane’s voice comes out in practically a sob. “I’ve been waiting for you for _so long_.”

 

And Maura’s lightheaded and it’s not until she sucks in a breath that she realizes that she hasn’t been breathing for what feels like minutes.

 

And Jane’s free hand comes up to her face, and her thumb rubs away a couple of Maura’s tears, and Maura hadn’t realized she was still crying – although, _of course_ she is – and Jane is just _looking_ at her. Like she loves her.

 

“Maura,” Jane says.

 

And Maura’s still clasping her own hands together, and Jane still has one hand on top, holding both of hers, but with the other hand on Maura’s cheek she draws her forward. And Jane leans forward and stops, just an instant away, to give Maura the chance to pull away.

 

And Maura once willingly got in a car with a known murderer, but pulling away would be the dumbest thing she’s ever done.

 

So she stays still, eyes open, until Jane closes the gap, and one second they’re so close, breathing each other’s air, and Maura’s eyes are slipping closed, and then the next they’re kissing.

 

And it’s soft, and slow, and a little wet. And it’s sweet and Jane tastes exactly the way she smells, and her lips are so gentle and her hand on Maura’s face is so gentle, and Maura frees one of her hands and brings it up to rest on Jane’s elbow, softly encouraging Jane to keep holding her, to stay right where she is.

  
And their lips move slowly, just mapping each other, and Maura’s breath keeps catching, and she’s never felt anything like this.

 

Somehow, they pull apart to breathe, and Jane just rests her forehead on Maura’s, and keeps her hand on Maura’s face, and Maura turns her hand that’s still underneath Jane’s and interlaces their fingers. Her other hand drifts from Jane’s elbow to grasp at the collar of her shirt, to stroke her neck, to run along her collarbone.

 

“Jane,” she says, her voice low and hoarse and deep.

 

“I’m not letting you go,” Jane says. “I’m not.”

 

“I’m right here,” Maura says, eyes still closed.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter. Just an epilogue after this.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. I'd love to know what you thought.

“How—how will this work?”

 

They’re walking through the park, not headed anywhere particular. They’re holding hands again, but this time Maura has her other hand wrapped around Jane’s elbow, holding her body as close as she can.

 

She feels impossibly clingy, and she can’t make herself care.

 

Jane kisses the side of her head, without breaking her stride. “I don’t know,” she says.

 

“I guess it depends on Tommy and Lydia,” Maura says softly, gaze down at the ground, voice both worried and wistful.

 

She nearly gets whiplash tripping over herself when Jane stops abruptly. Maura looks back at her, both hands anchoring her to Jane’s body. “No.” Jane’s voice is firm, and she’s looking right into Maura’s face and her eyes are clear and determined. “No. It’s up to _us_. I’m done letting them control this.” She gives Maura’s hand an extra squeeze when she says _this_ , and Maura melts a little.

 

“What…” Maura stutters a little. “What does that mean?”

 

“I, uh,” Jane scratches at the back of her neck, a little blush forming on her cheeks. Maura cocks her head, interested. “I’d like to talk with Ky about it, but after that? I think it means we just tell them that it’s part of the deal. That it’s a factor now, and they don’t get to put forward any scenario that doesn’t respect it.”

 

Maura nods a little, trying to stop feeling so overcome with emotion. “You should talk to Kylie soon, then.”

 

“Yeah, yeah I was thinking this afternoon.”

 

“Do you want me to come with you?”

 

“Uh, no. If that’s okay. I just…I think this is something that I should tell her myself.”

 

“Of course, Jane.”

 

And Maura gives her an extra squeeze with both hands, and Jane pulls her in sharply and Maura gives a startled little laugh as she collides with Jane’s body. And Jane kisses her, and kisses her, and she cannot possibly believe this is happening.

 

* * *

 

Jane takes Kylie out for milkshakes at this ‘50s themed diner that’s kind of their special place.

 

“So,” Kylie says eventually, leaning forward, arms on the table, a look in her eye that tells Jane she could make an excellent interrogator one day. “What are you buttering me up for?”

 

“Buttering you up?” Jane puts on an exaggerated innocent face. “Me?”

 

“Uh, you let me get a double chocolate milkshake in the middle of the day.”

 

“Maybe I’m just the best aunt ever, you ever think about that?”

 

Kylie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sure, but that doesn’t explain the french fries. I’m gonna ruin my appetite for dinner for sure, and the last time you let me do that was when Pop Pop was moving to Florida.” Jane can’t argue with her logic – the girl is smart. “So…? What is it?”

 

“Uh, okay, Ky, I’m gonna give it to you straight, okay?”

 

Kylie nods.

 

Jane takes a deep breath. She has no idea how to do this. “So, um, it’s, uh, about Maura. But not…not about _you_ and Maura. It’s about…it’s about _me_ and Maura.”

 

Kylie cocks her head a little bit, and she looks a little like Maura when she does that, and it squeezes Jane’s heart. “What about you and Maura?”

 

“Well, uh, do you remember, in Chicago, when Maura said that she and I were friends, back before?”

 

Kylie nods.

 

“And that, she told you that she lived with me for a little bit?”

 

Kylie nods again, but her eyes are getting warier. “Yeah…?”

 

“Well, uh,” Jane dips a fry in her milkshake and eats it to buy time. Kylie watches her like a hawk. “She wasn’t…completely honest with you about that. I mean, that all happened, just like she said, but she…left something out.”

 

“Left what out?” Kylie is clearly on fence about whether or not she’s going to be upset.

 

Jane tries to tread carefully. She’d hoped the milkshake would have bought her more goodwill than this. “That…um…” She lets out a big puff of air, and sort of settles into herself. She looks Kylie directly in the eye and just tells her the truth. “She left out that we developed feelings for each other. Romantic feelings.”

 

There’s a long pause, then, tentatively, “You…liked her?”

 

Jane takes a beat before answering, wondering what Kylie’s thinking and trying to be gentle with her. “Yeah, I liked her. I…honestly, Ky, between you and I, and I’ve never told anyone this before, but…I loved her.”

 

“Did she like you back?”

 

Jane can’t help but smile a little. “Yeah, kid. She did.”

 

“So, okay, what are you saying? You guys were like, going out?”

 

“No. No, we, uh. No. We never did anything. We didn’t even talk about it, ever. Because she was still pretty traumatized, and stuff. We were…waiting.”

 

And Kylie is a smart kid, so she fills in the rest herself. “And then she left.”

 

Jane presses her lips together, looking sympathetically at Kylie. “Yeah. And then she left. And we didn’t see or talk to each other for nine years.”

 

“Why didn’t she stay for you?”

 

Jane lets out a puff of air, and leans back in the booth, pulling her milkshake with her and taking a deep pull. “It’s…that’s complicated, kind of.”

 

But Kylie isn’t put off. She just leans in, arching an eyebrow. “Try me,” she says, like a worldly 30-year-old.

 

Jane takes a breath, and she tries. “Honestly? I asked her to. To stay with me. But she said, and she was definitely right, that it would have been too hard to be with me when she couldn’t see you. That it would kill her to just wait at home while I was with you.”

 

“But maybe if she’d stayed, if she’d been with you, they would have changed their minds!”

 

Jane shrugs a little. She doesn’t know how to respond to that. “I don’t know, kid. Maybe, yeah. But…you don’t remember what they were like, then. They had the therapist backing them, they were furious and fierce about it. It honestly…it didn’t seem like they’d ever change their minds.”

 

“So, okay, you liked each other and then she left. Why are you telling me this now?”

 

Well, here goes nothing. “Because…I still love her, Ky. And she…she told me today that she still has feelings for me too. And we want to be together.”

 

“What does that mean, together?”

 

Jane’s confused by the question. “What?”

 

“Like…are you…gay?”

 

Jane runs a hand through her hair. She—stupidly, probably, she realizes—wasn’t prepared for this line of questioning. “I don’t—I don’t know, I guess. I know that I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone else, but I don’t…I don’t know.”

 

“More than Casey?”

 

Jane’s answer is immediate. “Yes. Much more.”

 

Kylie nods a little. “Is she gay? Cause her fiancé’s a man.”

 

Jane laughs a little. “I have no idea, kid.”

 

“Wait! Auntie Jane! She’s engaged! Oh my god, you’re the other woman!” Kylie’s eyes are wide and kind of…excited?

 

Jane shakes her head quickly. “No, Ky, she broke up with him.”

 

“What? When? Why?”

 

And Jane can’t help but grin, a huge smirking grin, and Kylie reads her like a book. “Oh my god, she dumped him for you? That’s…awesome!”

 

“Shush,” Jane says, but she’s pleased.

 

“But she…Auntie Jane, she lives in Chicago.”

 

“I know, kid.”

 

Suddenly Kylie looks three years old again. “Are you…” she swallows heavily, sadness radiating from her entire body. “Are you going to move there?”

 

And Jane’s hand is shooting across the table in a second, clasping onto Kylie’s wrist. “No, honey, I’m not. I’m not leaving you.”

 

Kylie looks up at her, measuringly, and Jane remembers how many times in her short life she’s had to do that calculation. To try to gauge who is going to leave and who is going to stay. She must be comforted by what she sees, because about half of the sadness drops away. “So what will you do?”

 

Jane mirrors her solemn look. “I don’t know, Ky. I don’t know.”

 

But then Kylie is brightening, and smiling, and that devious little glint that always means trouble is in her eye. “I do,” she says. “I have a great plan.”

 

* * *

 

Maura takes a cab to the address Jane had texted to her. It’s only about a ten minute ride, but she doubts herself when she gets out in front of dingy diner that looks like its best decades are far behind it. But then Kylie is running out of the door, giving her the huge hug she hadn’t been able to give this morning, and Maura guesses she must be in the right place.

 

Kylie takes her hand and leads her inside, past the most outlandish and garish 1950’s decorations Maura has ever seen – jukeboxes and roller-skates and _several_ life-size Elvis cutouts – to a booth in the back. And Jane grins up at her, milkshake in hand, and Maura melts a little bit.

 

She wants to curl into Jane’s shoulder. She wants to straddle her and kiss her breathless. She wants to steal her milkshake and play footsie with her under the table. She wants to take her home and finally, _finally_ , find out what’s under those clothes.

 

But instead she lets herself be pulled down to sit next to Kylie, across from Jane, fastidiously avoiding placing her hands or arms on the very sticky table.

 

“Thank you for coming,” Kylie says importantly, like she’s starting a business meeting. “Auntie Jane and I have a proposition to discuss with you.”

 

Maura can’t help what her face does – eyebrows shooting up, jaw sliding open – this girl is so _cute_ and this wasn’t the opener she was expecting.

 

“A…proposition?”

 

Kylie nods confidently. “A win-win proposition, in fact.”

 

Maura tries (and fails) to hide her grin. “Well, then. Propose away.”

 

She only realizes what she’s said when Jane makes a little choking sound, and ends up having to thump herself on the chest, eyes watering.

 

Kylie just glares at her for ruining the moment until she’s sure Jane isn’t dying, then she turns back to Maura.

 

“We propose that you move back to Boston.”

 

There’s a long pause. Maura takes a deep breath, but doesn’t say anything.

 

Kylie doesn’t seem at all discouraged. She plows on. “Auntie Jane and I both need to keep living here, me because of my parents and her because of her job, and also because she’s my secret parent and can’t move to Chicago and abandon me to my real parents.” Jane and Maura share a quick look – the girl is spot on. “But your job is more flexible, and you _used_ to live here so you obviously don’t hate it here, and we both want to be around you all the time, and we both love you, so we think you should move here and be with us. Full time.”

 

And Maura’s brain is just replaying “we both love you” over and over on a loop, so it’s nearly a miracle that she processes anything else Kylie has said.

 

Jane loves her.

 

Jane _loves_ her.

 

And she loves Jane, obviously, clearly, indisputably, but…Jane. Jane _loves_ her.

 

It’s something she knows, deep down in her bones, and also something she never dared to dream could be true.

 

Jane _loves_ her.

 

Maura can’t help but turn to look at Jane, who looks a little bit like she’s just been hit by a freight train. “You…you want this? You want me to move here?”

 

And Jane sort of unfreezes, but still looks like she’s operating with only about ten percent of her brain capacity. She nods, a little jerkily. “I…yes. I mean, you don’t…have to, obviously. But, if it’s all the same to you, or…I just…yeah. I do.”

 

And it takes Maura a moment to sort through that word jumble to understand that Jane has just asked her to stay.

 

Jane loves her.

 

“Well?? What do you say?” Kylie is nearly bursting at the seams, all professionalism tossed away in her impatience.

 

“I…” Maura swallows, hard. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an attractive proposition, tiny girl.”

 

Kylie’s eyes bug out a little. “Wait. Are you saying yes?!?” She looks seconds away from exploding.

 

Maura reaches out and tucks Kylie’s bottle blonde hair behind her small little ear. “Yes, tiny girl. I’m saying yes.”

 

And Kylie rockets herself into Maura’s body and clings to her and cries and Maura wraps one arm around her and reaches the other out across the table. And Jane looks her right in the eye and takes her hand and squeezes, hard, and Maura feels, for the very first time in her life, like she has a family.

 

And they order a celebratory second round of shakes and fries, and Kylie teaches Maura to dip the fries in the milkshake to make it taste like waffles, and it’s honestly delightful, and this diner may be the best place Maura has ever been in her life.

 

* * *

 

They drop Kylie off at home before heading back to Jane’s to change for dinner, which will be at Angela’s. Neutral territory, and all that.

 

And Jane is rummaging through her dresser for a clean pair of pants, and Maura is just looking at her.

 

“Jane,” she says, her voice clear and confident.

 

Jane looks up, still nearly elbow deep in her drawer.

 

“I uh,” Maura fiddles with her fingers a little, but she’s smiling. “I heard an interesting rumor today.”

 

And Jane looks confused for only an instant before she softens. She takes her hand out of the drawer. “Really?” she asks, taking a slow step closer, playing innocent.

 

“Yes,” Maura nods. “I heard a rumor that…you love me.”

 

Jane is right in front of her now, and she puts her hands on Maura’s waist. Maura’s own arms come up, resting on Jane’s shoulders.

 

“Well,” Jane says, her voice a little husky. “You know what they say about rumors.”

 

But Maura isn’t baited. “Just say it to me, Jane,” she breathes.

 

And she knows it’s happening, she _knows_ , but she still can’t believe it when it does. “I love you,” Jane tells her, looking right into her eyes.

 

Maura cocks her head a little bit, her lips pulling into a small smile. “I love you, too.”

 

“I’m really glad I didn’t shoot you,” Jane murmurs. And Jane leans down and kisses her, and Jane _loves_ her, and Jane is here, and Jane cares, and Jane is holding her like she’s something precious and wonderful, and that must mean that everything is going to be okay.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t easy by any means, but they make it work.

 

Maura finishes out the semester in Chicago before making the move to Harvard Medical School. Jane and Kylie come visit twice – and Jane comes alone to drive Maura’s car out to Boston with her. It’s their first road trip, and they take their time, getting to know each other again on the long open roads and in beautiful hotels on the banks of Lake Erie.

 

Before they leave Chicago, they track down Arnie the bus driver and pay him a visit to thank him for getting Kylie to Maura safely. Each Christmas they make sure he’s the owner of a very expensive gift basket full of just what he likes. And when his wife has a bad fall and her medical bills are overwhelming, one day the hospital calls him and tells him that his balance is zero, and he knows just who to thank.

 

Things with Tommy and Lydia aren’t easy. They had strict rules when Maura first got to Boston – once a week visits only, short ones. But they seemed, honestly, to give up. Within three months of Maura’s relocation, Kylie was spending as much time with Jane – and with Maura – as she had before. And things remain tense, but at least it’s not open warfare, and at least Kylie is getting what she needs, and at least the rest of the Rizzoli clan is happy to have Maura, and it’s more than enough.

 

Kylie never moves in with them, it’s always very clear who her parents are. But she calls Jane and Maura her secret parents, and, together with Angela and Frankie, they fill all the holes in her heart that they can.

 

Jane and Maura get a bigger apartment, and then eventually a house with four bedrooms. One for them, one for “guests” (Kylie), one for actual guests, and one for Bass.

 

And Maura finally learns what it feels like to be put first, to be wanted, to be part of a family – strange as this one is. To be loved. To love, this fiercely.

 

And when her living room is taken over by Italians screaming as the Red Sox tank a lead in the final game of the world series one year, she looks over at the sweet young woman standing beside her, ears filled with piercings and a Tufts acceptance letter in her backpack, and exchanges loving eye rolls.

 

“I love you, tiny girl,” she says, for probably the seventh time that afternoon.

 

And Kylie grins at her.

 

“I love you too, Mo.”

 


	18. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 

_Personal Statement Guidelines: Why does the field of social work matter to you?_

 

Smith College

School for Social Work

23 West Street

Northampton, MA, 01063

 

Dear Admissions Committee,

 

My name is Kylie Rizzoli. If you recognize my name, you may think that’s all the reason I need to be interested in the field of social work. But there’s a lot to my story that you don’t know.

 

What you probably know is this: When I was three years old, I was kidnapped from a park and held for twelve days by a delusional psychopath named James Fleiss. My aunt, Jane Rizzoli, was a famous homicide detective in Boston at the time. A woman was kidnapped with me, a medical examiner named Maura Isles, and held with me for the latter nine days. She engineered our escape. She and I both testified against him, and he was found guilty on all counts, and died in prison when I was sixteen years old.

 

I don’t remember much of what happened while I was gone. But what I do remember, and what has motivated me to become a social worker, is what happened to me after I was returned to my family.

 

My parents were uneducated, young, and unprepared to have a child. They were prideful and extremely defensive about their parenting, even before I was kidnapped. While I was gone, they were blamed by the media for leaving me in that park with an unqualified babysitter who was too young to be responsible for me. After I came back, I wasn’t receptive to their parenting. I had developed a preoccupied anxious attachment to Maura and an avoidant attachment to my parents. I had no interest in my parents, and they were completely unprepared to deal with that.

 

They took me to a therapist who took advantage of their ignorance and fear and used them for her own agenda. She didn’t care about my wants or my feelings. Even though I was only three years old, I’ve been told that I was very clear in what I wanted. However, she disregarded me, valuing only the input of my parents, and openly overlooking the stern objections of my aunt, my grandmother, Maura, and even Maura’s therapist.

 

She convinced my parents to rip Maura from my life, to completely cut her off. I knew, even as a small child, that this wasn’t the right thing to do, but it wasn’t until my child psychology and childhood trauma classes at Tufts University that I began to realize the extent of the violence this was to me. This therapist, who later lost her license because of actions like this, used her power over my family to destroy the only thing in the world that made me feel safe. Not only was I still coping with the trauma of having been abducted, having had a bomb strapped to my waist multiple times a day, having been drugged, having been physically abused and nearly starved before Maura arrived in the house – but now I was dealing with a loss of safety and of security that was completely unnecessary.

 

I firmly believe that I was more harmed, in the long-term, by this therapist’s actions, than I was by James Fleiss’s.

 

I’m aware that she was a particularly awful case. However, I spoke to many childhood trauma survivors as a part of my undergraduate thesis research, and fewer than twenty-five percent of them said that their first therapists took them and their needs seriously.

 

I want to attend the Smith School for Social Work to become a therapist and advocate for the youngest children – those who, like myself, may be unable to communicate in full, thoughtful sentences, but who still need, possibly more than any adult, to be understood and taken seriously. I want to help this population. I want to be the therapist that I needed, back when I was so young.

 

I was lucky, in the end. My aunt and my grandmother never left my side, acting more like parents than my actual mother and father. However, even with their support, by age twelve I was still on track to become a statistic. I was a frequent run-away, I broke every rule I encountered, I didn’t care about school or grades. Without an intervention, I likely would have fallen in with a rough crowd in high school, and would have started trying to dull my pain with drugs. I likely would be dead by now.

 

It was only Maura coming back into my life that pulled me back from that precipice. I was so lucky to have her in my life. Because of her, together with my aunt and my grandmother, I spent my teenage years safe and loved by this community of three women who took my needs seriously and helped me come to grips with the ways my trauma still was impacting me. A new therapist helped immensely, and by the time I enrolled at Tufts, I was, certainly not cured, because I will never be cured, but healing in a significant way.

 

But not every child who survives a trauma has a Maura and an aunt and a grandmother who will stand so firmly with them for so long. Those children need someone who will listen to their voice and fight for them, even over the objections of parents who don’t fully understand what is happening.

 

I want to be that therapist. I want to learn how to be that therapist at Smith.

 

It is my great honor to apply for admission to the Smith School of Social Work.

 

Thank you very much for your consideration.

 

Kylie Rizzoli

 

 


End file.
